


Dead To Me

by FictionallyAttractive



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alcohol, Asexual Character, Attempted Murder, Emotional Manipulation, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gore, M/M, Murder, Paranormal, Sarcasm, Suicide Attempt, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-24 12:54:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4920400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionallyAttractive/pseuds/FictionallyAttractive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This wasn't lust of any form he'd known. It wasn't skin contact or the sight of gore that was exciting him as his nose nudged against Fran's hair and watched him shiver when the cold finally got to him and his breath became that of a steam due to the utter chill consuming him as Bel settled away from his body sadly.</p><p>	He wouldn't be alone. And Fran wouldn't either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Out With The Old And In With The New

     Drowned in shade and the aroma of alcohol, the flickering floor down below was flooded by intoxicated banter- their voices like needles in his skull, their movement a blur of shadows bustling down around the sofa glowing in its hunter green fashion where standing and sitting forms alike huddled it.

     It was a mess of drunken rejects- their pitiful laughter howling through the den as if careless to the world outside the home that could probably hear the way those idiots barked and shared stories.

     Some hardly able to sit up when the footsteps leading their way came to a halt and witnessed their display of sheer idiocy face-on with a look of disgust crossing their watcher's face as he dug his nails freshly into his button-up, eyes glaring like fierce daggers behind bangs of blond hair.

     His features were evidently angered; his teeth clenched to avoid from belting out any irrational scoldings while his own brother was too off his ass to have heard him starting the war he always did- so Belphegor would say every time his twin so much as requested his stop leaving crumbs on the counter let alone ask him to leave his ratty friends behind to get the hell to bed before his brother's headache sunk in.

     But the friends he wished to address were already focused on his standing form in the illuminated circle from the TV. His black nails jutting out at Bel viciously who saw him through even his thick swing of wavy hair caught over his tipsy expression just losing focus with the way he seemed to be coherent enough to have set down the soda he had switched to drinking on the coffee table.

     "Rasiel." He spoke, his grin widening with every twitch of his twin brother's aggravated body that left him feeling ready to win a fight should he be challenged, and Bel leaned forward on the couch to be ready in case he tried anything.

     In case that guy tried to play dirty Belphegor wasn't going to go down without swinging a punch this time and Rasiel knew he wouldn't just let it slide.

     "I want them _out_." Rasiel demanded suddenly as he gestured angrily toward the door across from them in a burning rage seething behind his masked shout. "It's two am, and if I'm going to bed then you get your drinking buddies out."

     "I didn't drink."

     "Yeah, _right_."

     Rasiel wasn't amused, whether he believed him or not, taking his anger then on the group clustered around their den as if he were finally fed up with it all. He was done with the clutter, the disasters left behind from every night spent wrecking and destroying everything Rasiel wanted perfect, and he was through with the sharing.

     It wasn't like they were kids. Rasiel was a mature adult that wanted his own house, his own life, and to finally cut Bel out of everything he possibly could as if wanting to forget the idea he'd been born a twin at all.

     And Belphegor watched his every move, standing from the couch in his sagging hoodie, his steps something more sober than Rasiel could have assumed when he'd first approached them.

     "Stop being an ass, Siel." Belphegor growled without needing to show off the eyes behind his mop of hair to show his concealed threat. His voice said everything Rasiel needed to know before thinking of taking the first hit. "Doesn't it get boring being alone in your room all the time?"

     "It beats the trash you bring in here."

     One of Bel's friends had jerked their head to face away from the verbal battle, wanting to feel less awkward by drowning themselves in the taste of liquor. Their face was grim, responding in no way to Rasiel's command for them to get the hell out.

     The rest just sat there just as well like lumps, and paid no mind to his building aggression toward Belphegor that seemed rather spontaneous to anyone outside the home usually.

     "I figured at least one of us should have friends." Bel spat out, this time pissing his older twin brother off for good as Rasiel ground his teeth together with violent anger twisting in his gut- his headache starting to swell and pound behind the forehead he clutched with the sensation of images appearing before his darkened eyes.

     If he hit Bel now those idiots would see every second of the wailing his brother would get. If he so much as tried to start a single thing there'd be a bigger issue than anyone realized since Bel had so many lies up his sleeve Rasiel would be up the creek without a paddle- buried deep in the pain of police involvement and their parents' proclaiming Bel as "the good brother."

     Sure, Rasiel would have liked to argue, the most perfect son with his lazy lifestyle, good-for-nothing study skills, and the flunk out for anything he'd ever so much as attempted to no avail. While Rasiel had done it all.

     He'd done everything to save, not only his own ass, but to keep that nitwit from falling so hard on his face that he'd surely die without Rasiel by his side treating him like the brat he was.

     "Get them the hell out before I kick you out!"

     Bel exhaled sharply with a snickering stubbornness in his mocking gaze. That crooked grin was all too smug and lopsided, his arms flinging out as he nodded to his friends without word and moved to drift on by his hopeless brother in the same fashion.

     He didn't go too far though. Bel wandered as far as the stairs before hearing the front door shut when all his friends had passed through its opening, then he froze with the thought that he knew Rasiel would have so much more to say.

     There wasn't a mere minute of the day that they weren't tearing into one another, and after a pissing contest like this he expected to hear the raging fire from his tyrant of a sibling before he so much as heard the front door close.

     But there was a brief pause instead that hindered them both from the argument. Not that either of them were tired of laying down the insults that built of their rivalry- or that either of them were tired at all as the early hours of the morning were beginning to drag on and there were no neighbours to hear them if they stayed up all night spitting insults to and fro.

     "Oh, am I starting us off?" Belphegor began, his hands coming out of his hoodie pockets as he shrugged. And the blond he faced had his back turned now with his arms reaching up to baby the throbbing of his skull. "Take a couple of pills and knock yourself out already."

     "You want me dead?"

     Bel scoffed. "I meant to go to sleep; you said it, not me."

     There was that hum when Rasiel was taking it all in; that sound he made when he was starting to let Bel's words scrape away at his every bit of pride that was far too capable to be letting that brat walk over him every goddamn day of his life.

     "Ka-ching-" Bel added with an amused grin. "I hit some nerves again, huh?"

     Rasiel was trying to walk away from the mess and the disaster, his head pounding, fists pulled tight when he tried to avoid making that mistake when he let Belphegor push him around. He was always egging him on- yelling at him, being vile and vulgar til it made his stomach churn.

     "There you go again, right? The better brother? Too good to be caught dead with his lesser twin, Belphegor, who has to be exactly like his stuck-up, perfect, asshole of a brother who thinks it's his way or no-"

     Rasiel's hand flew up swiftly as he obscured the toxic insults being injected into the air. He was hardly listening to the ramble as it was, but he just shook his head. His smile spreading with grave sarcasm when he jerked around to face Bel head on, and jutted out his black nails as though leaving him with a threat.

     "You shouldn't have come to this house." He growled. "You're not welcome here."

     There it was, Bel thought, rolling his eyes that Rasiel couldn't see. His whole lecture on not being invited on this stupid vacation. Not like it was anything like relaxing when he had that dick restricting his every move and watching him like a bird of prey perched in every room of the house.

     Their parents told him to come. Sweet, little Bel and Siel learning to finally get along when they were all alone in Italy in a vacation home meant to be a haven away from home! And all Bel felt was imprisonment.

     "I don't want to be here anyway," He muttered with the last of his energy from the mass of soda he'd poured down his throat through the night even when his brother was sure to go around calling him a drunk until the day they returned home so he could swear to those gullible idiots that he'd been wasted from the moment they stepped foot on Italian grounds. "I"m sick of living with you."

     No one spoke for a bit. It was an awkward silence that was tense enough to slice with a knife when the blistering rage was settling down into its typical position of dormance. One last word and one or the other would snap; saying nothing was like the break-off for the night, leaving them both to stand there without wanting to be the one to make the first real attack.

     Hell, the last real fight they'd had was over two years ago, and it was entirely physical in the way that left them both so bloodied and bruised that Bel was accused of being bullied in school, and Rasiel was thought to have been abused.

     That was the last time, and they'd sworn to avoid it since then.

     "I'm taking a shower, and going to bed." Belphegor blurted out through the stillness when Rasiel glanced back to see him trudging upward to the second floor and away from the nuisance he despised. "Happy now?"

     Rasiel felt his breathing grow heavy all at once; his legs felt like weights when he tried to move from his position on the hard wood floors. Something was nearly crushing his lungs when he heard Bel say those words- all of his words from that night just circling and circling like crows when Rasiel realized that there was one thing he couldn't be yet.  
Happy.

 

* * *

 

  
     The relief of being left alone to boil in his own thoughts was worse than the imagined fate Rasiel could have decided. It was murder to sit there and listen to the surroundings rolling through his brain like thunder- the sounds of static and blaring light sounding off from the television his eyes fixed to like glue.

     But they were so blank. No emotion crossing his face at the bloody scenes streaming across the screen fading away when he tipped back a bottle left behind without being cracked open by one of those guests.

     They dare step into his home; they wreck the den, leave behind their grotesque beer that was bland and distasteful, his mouth struggling to take in its disgusting flavour until swallowing it down bravely with a grunt of misery.

     Why the hell did he have to deal with this? What did the good son do to have this burden chasing him around, clouding his head, making each and every thing like an obstacle in his way when all he wanted was the good life of being something more than a babysitter.

     His parents treated Bel like a child- like their little puppy being leashed when he was just destroying everything. Even now he didn't even give a shit enough to clean up his mess! Bottles and spills, the place disheveled before Rasiel gave the nearest set of cans a rough kick with his boot and let them rattle on the floor like they were nothing.

     Some weren't even empty yet. Their spills prepared to leave stains where they crashed, his anger growing at the sight of it when he slammed down the bottle at his lips and found himself fighting the desire to just wreck it all. It was his house.

     It was his house Bel was living in, and the little shit didn't even bother to apologize when he insulted him or disobeyed his simple orders and curfews.

     Rasiel grabbed at his head with pain behind his eyes, rocking back and forth on the sofa while he listened to every single creak in the walls or the squeak of the pipes as water flowed through them from Bel's shower.

     He was so carefree- wasting his time with those ratty friends of his, wasting his life when he could hardly force his way through a decent college or get a good job when no one would want someone like that filth working in their school or company.

     It was like a burden to everyone having that imbecile tacked into their society; even their own parents were doting on him by force so they didn't have to look that disappointment in the eyes and say "You fucked up." Not when Rasiel just wanted to do that for them, shake the kid, and beat some sense into his skull for taking away from him what he wanted. Not both of them. He wanted the house- he wanted his parents to see that what he deserved wasn't what Bel deserved and that there was no competition.

     Belphegor was not worth anything that Rasiel was, and he hated him.

     His hands laced within his straight bangs, taking in their oily touch when he realized that he'd also be needing a shower soon. One to clear his head of everything he'd done or would do, he thought, standing, his eyes narrowing off onto the couch beside of him as he reached to shakily hold the object to his right carefully when heading toward the stairs.

     The sounds of Bel's shower had stopped moments before his quivering stand from the couch; his intoxicated mind and numb senses dulled by the alcohol poured into his system after so much painful thinking. It was all just nothingness now.

     And he followed the voices he heard in his own mind with caution, listening to the way Bel was rustling about at the end of the hall where light poured out onto the floor and wall that it faced like a split through the darkness where the edge of Bel's form could be seen fluffing at his wavier hair.

     He was turned away from him, shaking the locks of his curls free of the warm water that no longer stained him as he was dressed for bed, his yawn heard the moment he let his head poke out from under the white fabric and cast his voice out into the shadows behind him when footsteps had reached his ears.

     "Siel?"

 

* * *

 

  
     Shed light was ruggedly torn through the scattered drag of trees towering overhead; it was barely dawn, the lurching creep of sun rays still lurking behind the woods where it gave no comfort through the cold sparking the grass in dew drops.

     That's where Fran's feet dragged across, trudging through moist, overgrown grass that grew clean up to his calves in sickening weight that made venturing over the lawn more of a chore than a relief as teal eyes took in the messy location as a whole and saw it for what it truly was after quite some time.

     The trees provided coverage at their backs, shadows dancing where the light could stray, but it didn't keep Fran from taking constant glances around the fenced lot where everything but flowers seemed to grow wildly and show signs of abandonement for longer than just a mere few weeks.

     His skinny legs were clinging to him under the damp moisture of the green grass when stepping onto the front porch left in a poorly done paint job chipped away from its original white then wrapped by ivy swallowing the house whole where it lie in secrecy under the forest's cover.

     "It's damaged for sure." Fran sighed when leaning his back against the rotted wood of the latticed porch. Everything about the old place just seemed fractured and older than what it was supposed to be- hell, it was supposed to have been a modernized kind of place left in disrepair for the birds just a few years back. "It'll fall apart."

     "Not if you're optimistic, kid."

     Navy blue hair crept past Fran with the tuck of hunter green pressed around his collarbone to keep out the vicious chill biting at them both at the approach of the cruel winter.  
Fran hated the winter, for sure, but could only give skeptical looks back at the front door slammed shut so many times it looked unsteady on its rusted hinges as dark as bronze while the blue door itself was beaten inward with dents that Fran's eyes only inspected at his distance while Mukuro took care of the lock bolted shut at his fingertips.

     "It's cold- hurry up and get it open." Fran complained while drawing his hooded jacket around his neck tighter through the breeze billowing through the whispering leaves that battered against each other.

     It made him nervous. His legs twitched under the pressure, eyes darting to the only place closest to public where the retreating driveway lie as empty as ever beneath the rays of morning light growing strong with the ushering dawn that Mukuro was sure to arrive just in time for and waste Fran's precious sleeping time with rushed packing and scurrying out the door like two rats fleeing from the set of traps.

     And his stomach growled endlessly just missing the breakfast he hadn't gotten the chance to cram down his throat before the dreadful a.m. rush.

     But it was doing so much more than growling as Fran watched Mukuro's back during the break in, his adult companion unlatching the locks just as Fran's eyes met the distance of the corner lot where his mind panicked over the chance someone should stumble upon them this time. And they'd catch them this time for sure- throw them both in jail where they'd ave to start dealing out excuses like cards wasted in some stupid game.

     And now that it was even on point to his nervousness, but Fran really hated card games.

     "All right, get in." Mukuro snapped swiftly as he thrust open the bolted door with eyes jolting back at the youth hustling on by Mukuro in quick steps inside the musty room that greeted him beyond the rug leading past the front door's guidance.

     It wasn't much to so much as even look at, he thought, inside and out it was a stale kind of place with dull walls left in tact but somehow plain with their stretching, bland colour stirring even within the kitchen visible over marbled counter tops of black that caught Fran's eye as being one of few dark things about the cool den.

     "No wonder they didn't have a welcome mat set out." Fran huffed as he pushed his bag further up on his shoulder, and gawked around at the ceiling where he was sure he would have seen even the slightest graze of cobwebs or spiders that never seemed to appear in his vision as Mukuro laughed.

     "Because this place has been dead for years." The quirky guy shot back. "Start with that."

     "I meant because it sucks here." Fran retorted with disapproval as his feet started for the bland furniture set in the left side of the living room that was left a mess with old cans and dust strewn over the lamp that his fingers trickled across gently in inspection. "I wouldn't want anyone to see this place if it were my house."

     "Hey, it's not a dump this time."

     It sounded as though that was supposed to be a set in stone deal or something. Probably because they'd certainly discovered worse places left to rot in the forest of in the bad part of town where any old apartment complex could be as run-down as an old shack, if not worse.

     "And if I'm lucky- I might even find myself a rat companion." Fran added with a monotone drag of his voice that left Mukuro mocking him with a pat on his shoulders- humouring the whining brat for old time's sake before passing by to make his way into the opposite side of the room where the kitchen lie open an awaiting their criticism.

 

* * *

 

     To be honest, it wasn't as though there was a choice written in their fate that gave Fran any right to be so critical anyhow. Beggars couldn't be choosers, his head haunted him when traversing the stairs toward the second floor where his eyes focused above him on the railing giving way to the long hall it amounted to with wooden floors stretching cleanly on either side of his arrival.

     To his right, there was almost nothing.

     A door at the far end of the hall that was shut tight and burdened with silence with only a closet placed at its end to match the lonely feel of that direction. While the left was spotted with rooms lining the hall- an amateur styled bathroom that was small yet suited to the house itself in dullness that meant nothing to the teenager creeping up into each room to peer into emptiness.

     Barren. There was almost nothing left behind from anyone once living in the place as though they'd shoved what mattered in bags and ran off. Thankfully leaving the place livable enough for the poor, pathetic stragglers catching wind of its existence like vultures preying on its mere shelter.

     Every bedroom was devoid of useful objects. No personal belongings littering the shelves or stands- sheets stripped from beds like someone had taken extra care to make those rooms boring as ever when they escaped into the shadows.

     That stood for two out of the three rooms he'd checked so bleakly, while the last one struck him as odd from the moment his head had popped into the doorway left open and creaking with his footsteps that trailed through the center of the disastrous floor strewn with so much junk he had to be cautious not to trip over clothes and massing crap left out in the open.

     But it didn't feel like the rest. It wasn't so dead and boring like the rest of the house that made him feel the typical hollow ring in his lackluster mind that searched for some sort of presence left behind in the supposed haven for the time being.

     It wasn't done in beige or white- and the floors weren't so clean and perfect like every square inch of the property that was kept neat as though parentally protected through threats- the kind of nonsense Fran remembered when his grandmother would tell him to keep crumbs off the carpet- drinks too.

     His bag was shrugged from his shoulder. The larger pack being slung onto the bed with black sheets that was left unmade and messy when Fran ran his hands along its surface to find how the room blended so differently than many of the other places he'd lived. Unlike those others, this room had more character than all of them combined as though someone had lived there a little later than they realized.

     That was when he heard the noise at his back, the thudding jump of his bag that was suddenly lying on the floor on its front as though it had slid off the smooth blankets with ease on its own.

     More than likely it was just too close to the edge when he'd laid it there before. Not to mention that Fran couldn't blame even inanimate objects for hating the weight of his bag as much as he did even when he securely laid it near the pillows with a murmured apology that scoffed from his breath as he started for the doorway again to return to Mukuro downstairs in all his noiseless movements below.

     "Leave it to you to pick this shit hole for a bedroom." Mukuro joked as his head popped in just before the teen could leave the space. He knew his friend had intended to startle him with the action, hoping to watch him jump back like a coward all the while he just kept his stale, bleak eyes on him with a yawn.

     "You probably picked the lonely one on the right, right?" He jabbed back. "Can't have us listening on what you do- that's gross, sir."

     Mukuro gave his shoulder a shove and laughed again. "I don't care what you do, and you don't need to care about what I do, okay? You just be nice."

     He shrugged. "I was being nice."

     "Right, uh-huh." He added with a shake of his head. "The plumbing works, electricity works- it's like someone's still paying for this place, or someone forgot about it."

     "Maybe someone still lives here."

     Mukuro scoffed at that, his heterochromatic eyes blinking back at Fran with disbelief as he took a look back at the hallway behind him in shock that anyone would be living still in a place so ravaged by weather and simplicity.

     Hell, the house was primarily empty aside from the very place Fran stood that left a draft caressing his ankles as they spoke like the wind had wedged its way under the window, or maybe he was imagining these things as he watched his leader's eyes glow and his hand tap the door frame.

     "Well," He began in a proud voice. "If they are living here- I hope they don't mind some new roommates."

 

* * *

 

     In addition to having electricity, that gave Fran the chance to test out the television set within the corner of the room that was displaying a static screen to make the teen's face puff out.

     He didn't expect to be so lucky to have both cable and electricity, no, but the idea of having a shot at it had made him content with the choice of the only room that had blankets and a television aside from the older model in the living room that was still as icy as the settling night that made Fran feel as uneasy as he imagined poor Chrome Dokuro, a friend of Mukuro's, would have been sitting alone in a strange place such as this.

     His eyes strayed to what he could watch however. Old movies found under the stand the television was placed upon like a dark chest teeming with plenty of old horror films, comedies, and things Fran didn't dare investigate when he had plenty to choose from as it was while fishing around in the cabinet curiously and letting his brain catch on few details while he was just settling in himself.

     The last thing he needed was to find out they were infested with spiders, or snakes, or something equally grotesque when sticking his hand into strange places.

     But it was fine to waste his night with the sound of laughter and actor's chatting blaring at his back while his hands had already busied with the only other thing about the room that bothered him worse than every other that he fixed by tossing it all aside into the corner like he were in no mood to fold every single jacket, shirt, pair of pants, or...worse that he found buried under layers of junk that was thrown aside like everything else if only to clear a path.

     He'd throw it all away later, probably. The clothes would fit him, but were tasteless and rugged in appearance. Holey and sometimes consumed by stripes that made Fran feel like he'd stepped into a tacky vintage store that made him laugh at the particular lack of anything even remotely eye catching.

     Much like the old books he'd found just thrown under the bed that were simplistic and lame to his own tastes.

     Or the magazine he found lying with its cover faced down and revealing a rather scantily clothed woman at its front that made the teen roll his eyes with disinterest as he more or less just scanned the cover, and fanned through the pages curiously for any signs that pages had been marked or doodled over that he could pick at.

     It was just another bit of junk he found to occupy himself in yet another boring, ratty place he'd call home, and it was just another thing he set aside on the bed while he reached for scraps of wrappers pushed beneath the mound of clothes that he scooped up into his palms to trash like most of the garbage around him that he held under his tight fingers just as there was a sound outside the door where Fran wandered to cautiously as though some part of him was anxious about just ripping open the door just yet.

     Either in case it were weak enough to literally shatter off its hinges or because the place made his stomach turn under his skin in the way it creaked and breathed around him.

     But what he came to the hall to see was only Mukuro trudging back to his bedroom on the left where teal eyes met the alternating blue and red almost smiling back at him in goodnight as he shut the door behind him and gave a sigh.

     The rest of the house was left dark. The lower floor pitch black with the night casting through the windows where Fran peered with his nerves fading at the beauty of the large window above the den he'd never noticed until taking the time to do so.

     In reality, there never seemed to be a point in enjoying any place they stayed since they never stayed long, but Fran couldn't blame that on every little thing as his head turned to face the bathroom behind him where he peeked in on the stillness of the room quieting his urge to hole up in that room all night even when he felt as though something about the place were eerie than most.

     It was the small things that made him cave like that. Things like the way the small bathroom had a waste basket wedged next to the sink that was still half full with old wrappers of snacks and toiletries that Fran couldn't shake as being...recent, or just making him dwell on it too much. Like always.

     He did this a lot when nightfall came about, he thought, wondering back to the bedroom across the hall where his body paused outside the suddenly half-closed door that his palm flattened against with a rough swallow in his throat. The movement in his body came to a halt just listening to the sounds of shuffling on the other side of the bedroom door nearly shut to hide a shadow flickering through the crack of light- just a sliver of motion that showed over Fran's reaching knuckle that wanted to shove open the door and get it over with all the while wondering if it was even safe to think of something so brash.

     But he did it anyway. Fran wasn't one to back down so easily- the swift push of the door allowing him to move forward on his legs that carried him effortlessly into the scene of normality displayed out for him to see in the array of junk he left sitting about. This time, with more than just any shadow at its center that moved about freely on its own legs twisting about while the male figure leaned his back against the posts of the bed in a strange sounding laugh to make Fran's nose twitch just seeing him stand there so oblivious to the teen's entrance that left the room silent other than the motion of flipping pages of the porn magazine held in the guy's hands from where Fran had let it sit.

     Fran shut the door behind him then, hoping the noise would attract attention as the once-upon-a-shadow suddenly flipped his entertainment closed, and gave a wild grin. His face maniacal and unfriendly as he bent forward and brushed wickedly long bangs over his eyes that were unseen beneath the mess of waves he saw like dirty gold.

     "I've read that magazine like like twenty times," The wispy voice emerged from the male's throat, his hand gesturing to the trashy cover that he set on the bed where he still stood without explanation. "You can have it. I don't even care."

     "I'm sorry- who are you?" Fran played it off composedly. His arms folded with the sudden desire to have left the door open behind him despite not feeling afraid of the weirdo standing before him with the bangs and Cheshire smile mocking him on every hissing laugh that came out like he were struggling to breathe even when it was rather lively in sound. "You must be really good at hide and seek because you weren't-"

     "I wasn't?" He interrupted. "How would you know? You didn't really look around much, Fran."

     Fran's brow raised at the sound of his name being spoken off the stranger's lips.

     "By the way, I'm Belphegor- and we should just leave it at I have a kind of hobby in scaring my guests." He wasn't waiting for Fran to talk back. He didn't seem to care in the end as he gave Fran's bag another shove, the fabric case falling to the floor onto bare carpet while his eyeless stare snared the teen into a trapping sense of humiliating threats that made his head tilt with a click of his tongue.

     He was never so easily amused with anyone so pesky and degenerate such as this intruder giving him weird looks when plopping down on the bed in a sprawling leap like he just owned the place.

     "Clearly you don't like guests since you don't clean anything." Fran finally retorted boredly as he gathered his bag off the floor under the watch of his rude guest that couldn't help but give Fran's forehead a prod when making the kid edge backward. "Yeah, don't touch me either-"

     "Same goes for my shit."

     "If you won't clean up, I will." Fran fired back with a tinge of rudeness truly filling his voice, and he meant it when cocking his head and yanking some dirty clothes from the floor to toss away while the ruthless stranger kicked out his leg to catch Fran on the butt when knocking him out of the way from his cleaning spree if only just to agitate the brat who was fishing through all of his belongings carelessly, and just piling them up to throw out.

     Bel didn't know who the kid was or why he had decided to move in, but he knew that he wasn't about to let everything he had be trampled over just to make room for some bratty teenager giving him a en eye roll when staring right back at him under that oddly blank expression.

     "I like the mess, and I like my house the way it is, thank you." Belphegor warned with his baggy hoodie sticking out from his slender body while he sat smirking back at the stubborn Fran he addressed without so much as sitting up to face him at an intimidating height. "You know, without you in it."

     "What does that mean? You want me to get out because, let me say, I so scared."

     "You're seriously not afraid of someone just appearing in your room out of nowhere, and telling you to get out, huh?"

     "Not when it's my room now," Fran threatened with a mocking voice that came out like a bland song stuck on his lips that made Bel flinch with frustration just listening to this newcomer belt out that he had claimed Belphegor's bedroom of many years just for himself like he had any right to do so. "Don't like it, maybe you should start packing because it'll be go-one by morning." Fran sang out with Bel's teeth gritting together.

     "I don't like sharing." Bel seethed in almost a playful whisper. "Prince's don't share."

     "Oh, so I'm being threatened by royalty? I should be honoured!"

     "Fran? Talking to yourself already?" Mukuro's voice called shallowly out of the hall where the teenager stood near to with his eyes blinking closed when footsteps stopped midway to the bedroom where he stood face to face with some mere stranger probably glaring him down behind that messy bowl of hair that he just wanted to rip out of his face.

     He didn't care how many homeless freaks walked in that front door, but he lived there now, and it would never be the first time he and Mukuro had gotten in a fight for something like this.

     "I'm fine- go to bed already." He yelled back with Belphegor laughing at him silently with teeth showing under that snotty grin of his. "Same to you, by the way, go back to bed or something."

     It wasn't defeat, but Belphegor had settled on a new plan. This time, scoffing under his breath in a bewitching sound of irritation as he left the bed and laid hands on the door knob where Fran kept an eye on his every move like a hawk that didn't so much as tremble when watching this invading stranger wreak havoc on his new life.

     But Bel gave the brat what he wanted thanks to his little tantrum, his body ready to leave as he stopped to give Fran one last, knowing look and snarl.

     "Goodnight, and you better not throw away any of my shit."

     "Then I suggest you start packing it up, and get to leaving." Fran retorted stiffly with a yawn as his body backed up onto the bed. "You'll be going away then?"

     "No, actually." He sighed, shoulders shrugging when his smile grew painfully wider to give Fran the creeps just looking at his silhouette in the dark hallway when he started to exit into the shadows. He laughed, wispy laugh teasing Fran whose eyes felt heavy with sleep as he only half heard what Bel tacked on before closing the door.

     "The dead don't go away."


	2. I Told You So

     It wasn't until Fran had heard the door truly close that night that the paranoia had sunken into his veins. This coercing feeling of dread and anxiousness swelling up behind a pit of curiosity when he heard something close with a hefty click just behind the door shut before his very eyes blinking back some kind of...loss.

     His surroundings were bittersweet. This timid touch to his skin prickling with a draft he'd never before felt under the waves of eerie emotion wafting from the place he stood within that seemed to be crashing down around him- walls spinning and making Fran's head ache before he was unable to stop himself from prying his door open and emerging into an empty hall devoid of the sounds he'd hoped to still hear.

     If Belphegor was leaving, there were no sounds of footsteps to be heard down the middle staircase, nor the sounds of the front door's incessant creaking that made Fran want to take a peek out into the darkness of the house closing in around him.

     No, Belphegor wasn't about to leave. The guy seemed too proud and obnoxious to care how Fran poked threats at him, or how he argued that the room he'd claimed was now his own whether the nuisance wanted to believe that or not.

     Fran had no reason to feel guilty about that even if there was someone there. Someone creeping about the house that gave the teen chills up his spine when standing outside the newly closed bedroom door.

     The empty room with the bland walls and cleared mattress Fran had peeked into earlier, but with the door fastened shut on its rustic hinges clamped back with a solid twist of the gilded doorknob that wouldn't give with the slight touch to its smooth surface.

     And it was soundless on the other side. As though it were locked on its own without so much as a breath on its other side that Fran had listened for with his ear damn near pressed to the wood.

     But he could hear nothing before turning back to this own room with narrow glances over his shoulder at the room left distanced from Fran's comfort zone for as long as he couldn't yank it open and swear to nothing being inside.

     Rather, maybe he wanted the stranger, Belphegor, to be there if it meant he wasn't just being crazy or hallucinating house guests from the loneliness he'd never felt through any of their other moves.

     After all, something about his guest being dead didn't settle well in his stomach giving him nervous flutters just thinking about every haunting possibility of what had happened just moments before.

     That's why he didn't want to tell Mukuro. And maybe that was insane seeing as the idiot was probably just lying through his teeth to bum off their food and new life pretending to be some ghost lingering behind while making poor teenager's lives living hells just because he was cruel like that.

     Fran closed his bedroom door behind him regardless, sighing into the stale air as he wondered if Mukuro would tear the house apart trying to locate the guy if Fran did bother to tell him.

     Maybe.

     Or maybe Fran was just overlooking this strange, fantastical possibility that there was more than what met the eye on the situation. It just seemed so awkward even in his head to suggest that something as ridiculous as a ghost could be humanely possible behind all other possibilities.

     His fingers swiftly locked the door behind him, barricading the surface with his shoulder in a heavy breath of exhaustion when standing again to head for the messy bed he would be sleeping in if it killed him to keep it.

     The only thing that burdened him from this good night's sleep was the chilling draft billowing from the crack of the bedroom window, and the vengefully obvious chance that the dead could still cling to this world.

 

* * *

 

  
     Fran despised mornings most after all was said and done through the years. It was like training for his body by now, like a fire drill, to get up, rush out of bed with prepacked bags to get out of bed, get dressed, and fling himself alongside Mukuro out the front door before leaving everything behind again.

     This wasn't the same occasion, however. It was a new house, a hollow shell of a home glowing with late morning sunlight to blind his eyes where the blinds were flung open wide unlike the night before.

     And his face was shielded by smothering his face down into the pillow mercilessly. If he suffocated he somehow couldn't give a fuck since it saved him from having to crawl out of bed needlessly just to spend the rest of the afternoon lying around like a lump with nothing better to even do.

     His body flopped over toward the bedroom's entrance, face tired and groggy with a yawn etched into his sleepy features upon sitting up under the smooth sheets molded around his slender legs that gathered together in a stretch.

     He wanted to know the exact time; he hadn't had a clock for a few months since their old apartment had come with a free one thanks to an overbearing landlord obsessed with anything remotely close to getting paid.

     Maybe she was out for a higher electric bill, but Fran enjoyed knowing when he had to really drag himself out from under soft blankets and into bitter cold air of a house without any heat whatsoever.

     Enough to freeze the sole of his foot when making contact with cool floors that caused his teeth to chatter for a second when the chill reached his arms, and he was faced with the brand new issue presenting itself to his eyes blinking away the tired glaze to see the mess unfolding in front of him in the form of clothing splayed out over the floor again.

     His bag spilled out completely with every bit of the dresser just as well torn apart from top to bottom with all of Fran's clothes flung out in disorderly fashion to make the teen cringe with disgust.

     Books were no longer stacked- they were flung on their spines and open, scattered and messy under his feet as he heaved a sigh of annoyance with a name ready to tumble from his lips as teal eyes collected on one thing in particular that caused Fran to groan.

     "Belphegor." He muttered to himself, focusing on the open door to his room with concentrated daggers shot out from his intense stare that hoped to catch the troublesome guy in the act with that stupid grin.

     He wanted yet another reason to reprimand him again. Hoping he could really lay into him for having thrown Fran's stuff around like an animal that night.

     Fran trudged to the doorway, the swirling blend of dust and sun beams making his eyes feel unfocused when just glimpsing the mess of musty debris in the air he was breathing in. And it was stiff after that inhaling the dense atmosphere beyond even the bedroom he'd taken to just when popping his head out into the hallway barren as ever when his hands jutted out on both sides of the door frame to take a peek down both sides of the hall.

     It was the first sign that Mukuro's door was left closed, the light peeking out from beneath the crack at the base of the door where Fran's eyes chose to attack to as he crept further out into the silence of the house creaking like squeaking mice under his gentle steps that came to a halt when faced with the sight across from him left wide open and blank as the day Fran had first laid eyes on the stripped bed and bland walls streaked with the likes of nail pops and dingy furniture left behind in the bedroom Belphegor had apparently slept in the night before when Fran had demanded he leave.

     And he recalled testing that door, the knob as cold as ice before when his fingers had slid around its surface though, now, it was left in its usual state against the wall where the room was simply open again and without a trace of having had any guests at all within its midst.

     No wrinkles, no shifty differences catching the teen's eye when he rubbed his neck somewhat anxiously in the thoughts of what Belphegor said to him still clinging to the back of his mind.

     Because, as weird of a thought as "being dead" was, the guy seemed to be gone like yet another shadow from the place he'd stayed, or had made damn sure to make it look like not a single thing in the place had even been touched just to give Fran the creeps when turning his back to the place and and making his way downstairs.

     That's when he found out for certain that Mukuro was really not in the house at all that morning. His hand writing found scrawled on a salvaged scrap of paper to say he was out in search of some cheap food to keep around.

     The idea that Fran was left alone in the place where he felt like he was being constantly monitored by some stranger he'd met face to face in his bedroom was bad enough as it was, but he didn't let that stop him from peering past opened closet doors, around corners left unsearched as he passed them by frequently yet never bothered to take any prolonged looks.

     Honestly, who would bother? It wasn't a common issue to have your new home invaded by moochers feeding off your fear and wanting to leap around counters just to spook you- if only that.

     Fran had no idea what Belphegor's game was, but he knew that he wasn't lurking about the main floor- not under any beds, and not in the basement where Fran stood wandering about for a few good minutes just standing in the bitter chill and drafty room against concrete floors making the soles of his feet freeze just staring into still darkened corners.

     But the place was hollow. Not a thing left behind or having ever been there in the first place when Fran gazed over old walls musty with possible mold that his fingers didn't dare touch when he walked on by, neck craning to take wary looks back at the top of the stairs where the door was left open enough to see the light of day over his shoulder.

     How he wanted to keep things.

     The point was, Belphegor wasn't there.

 

* * *

 

  
     Near the top of the stairs, there was a silhouette cast from across the hall. The bathroom door's white contrasting with the dark grey of a moving figure barely flinching at Fran's rapid steps surging up the staircase the instant he realized what it appeared to be from the den.

     His body was flung around the corner in that second, turquoise hair slinging forward around his face when he grumbled at the conjured idea that he was really about to give his little visitor a piece of his mind for having trashed his stuff last night.

     Fran's body and mind on the same page when he poked his head into the bedroom where Belphegor was stretched out over the black sheets, his eyes buried in a book Fran had found before bed as slender legs kicked out playfully when he snickered at either a line of text or the way Fran huffed out a breath in annoyance with just seeing that sarcastic grin spreading wide over the ignorant stranger's face.

     And hearing him so much as open his mouth brought a scowl to the teen's face, his hand falling against his hip as Belphegor propped his chin upon the heel of his palm and let unseen eyes rest on him when flipping the book closed.

     "You're boring as heel, brat." He complained, sighing. "Didn't anyone ever tell you reading was a nerdy thing?"

     "Why the hell are you still here?" Fran retorted aimlessly since part of him knew the question would be shoved aside for something Belphegor would rather say over answering anything directly.

     He was more of a witty kind of jerk; he had to get the last laugh, the last comment, and it was no chance in hell he'd be letting some teenager pry anything out of him so easily.

     Of course, Belphegor only shrugged, body sitting upright with the striped fabric of his long sleeved shirt stretching out when he yawned aloud.

     "Okay, what about my stuff? You just think you can throw everything on the floor because you don't care?" He continued. "Are you just having so much fun picking on me?"

     It was rhetorical, but Belphegor truly nodded his head in response to the kid's rage. His face showing the smug satisfaction he got out of getting a rise out of the brat he aimed to torture- if just for a bit since it felt like so long since he'd had anyone to mess around with.

     "Am I supposed to feel bad about stealing my own bedroom back? No." He got out, watching the bright-haired kid start to open his mouth again. But he lifted his palm to quiet him. "And, trust me, I don't. Your stuff was junk anyway."

     His legs swung off the edge of the bed swiftly, expertly angling to the window where he stood gazing out over lifted blinds that gave way to the forest flowing with brilliant sunlight that he took in behind golden hair still messier than anything Fran had ever seen. Like a bowl cut done in heavy waves naturally swerving around the frame of his eyes where they were invisible behind mussed locks.

     Fran just stood there a little awkwardly, quietly, shuffling into the room a bit further when Belphegor's back was facing him to grab some of his belongings from the carpet numbly as though he was just tired of wasting time trying to cram some reasoning into that thick skull too amused with the scenery to have noticed how Fran shoved his bag back along the sheets again.

     His ears tried to tune out the things he heard when he busily cleaned up the room, the humming his guest made when he viewed the world behind dirty glass and tilted his head back to address the kid again.

     "What's even new out there?"

     The question would normally make no sense. Like one of those dumb what's hip questions adults threw in your face now and again to try and act like you had something to really talk about without sounding awkward. Of course, they just come off as stupid instead.

     It reminded Fran very much of his grandmother, his attention switching gears for a second before faltering back into the reality of having Belphegor give his shoulder a push from the window sill as h nearly toppled off balance in the surprise of having the force given to his side.

     "What?" He remarked irritably, but his rude acquaintance only scoffed at the agitation of his tone.

     "I asked you a question, so don't try ignoring me." He advised in a hiss, shoulders jerking back to the window when he repeated what he said clearly. "What's different in town or like anywhere now?"

     "I don't know- I've never really been around here much."

     "Well, you're here, aren't you?" Belphegor snorted with wonder at how Fran could seem so impatient when he was the one dragging this out longer than it had to be, yet he acted as though he had every right to be so annoyed and frank with Bel. Like he owned the place, Bel reminded himself, and he didn't care for that pesky attitude one bit. "You've seen more than I have in the last ten years."

     "Nope, you're wrong." The teen boasted, singing out happily when he had bragging rights. "I lived in France a few years back; I moved here with Mukuro. Well, to live with Mukuro."

     It didn't make sense to go blabbing that to some guy he hardly knew, but it didn't seem like Bel cared whether or not he got to know Fran at all. He was just amused to hear a few tales, perching his butt on the window with an odd grin plastered on his face when he happened to hear the foreign country's name get thrown into the conversation so idly.

     "All right, so why come here then?"

     There were a lot of reasons why. None of them so easy to get off his chest, nor his tongue so willing to just start spewing off all the things he never got to talk about with Mukuro who bottled all that up just as well.

     It was personal, Mukuro tried to claim, and personal meant never having to make it a dinner conversation or something to just leave hanging in the air. Not when it could be held inside and just...fermenting in its own ways. Stewing in Fran's thoughts that he wished he could just spill it, but couldn't when he settled on just shaking his head and seating himself on the bed while Bel stared him in the eyes carefully, plucking at his sleeve absently while just letting the sun warm his skin.

     "Because Italy is nice? What kind of weirdo goes asking for my personal life?" Fran played it off cool, snubbing him with his nose poked to the air as his new roommate seemed to grit his teeth for a second.

     "I'm bored, and it entertains me to see that you hate talking about it."

     Fran's eyes jolted up, wondering what the narrow look of those eyes must have looked like when he swallowed and showed certain discomfort at the blatant statement that Belphegor retracted in a sudden laugh. The daringly jarring one he made like hisses in the air.

     "Is that what you wanted me to say? Because I can be just as rude right back, frog."

     "Oh, a French joke." He sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair when giving his somehow secretly friendly roommate a look of blank expression he never wavered from. "Like I'll never hear that one again."

     There was a beat. A passing bit of time where it was just Fran touching to the sheets and smoothing over their surface with his head tilted up to watch the blank ceiling with deprived boredom.

     And Belphegor just gazed out over the bedroom bleakly, his mouth opening in a yawn when all he could add in was "Life here didn't suck too bad when I was, you know, fine."

     Fran just pondered that alone. Crossing his arms when he thought on the way he was living now. Abandoned lots, evicted households, bills piling up, food a resource yet almost out of reach and ripped away from his growling stomach, and he thought...sitting back on the bed to deepen his worries, how Bel must have lived that seemed so much better than the way he saw Fran suffering in the dark without realizing it.

     But that was almost too deep a cut to lay out in the open, and the teen shoved it all back down into the depths of what sanity could be maintained when someone you were speaking to was claiming their own death.

     "It hasn't done me any good yet."

     Belphegor gave one of those silent chuckles. Soft, almost understanding when his legs crossed over and he heaved out a sigh. "I guess I wouldn't know."

     "I'm dead." Bel deadpanned, bringing the mood back to something more lively just as Fran was back to his self with swiftly shutting him down again with his hand thrown up to dismiss him.

     "Yeah, yeah, you keep saying that, but it doesn't make any sense."

     With his head buried in his sleeve, Belphegor seemed to muffle his laugh, snickering behind his red and black shirt when he straightened up his back to stand taller than his youthful friend still sitting on Bel's bed as comfortably as ever when waving Bel off the moment he walked a little closer.

     "You can stay here as our house mate, I guess, but you really have to knock it off with that whole "I'm dead" thing. Mukuro probably wouldn't like that kind of thing." His voice was pitched to tease Belphegor, eyes brightening when he saw the way it irked Bel in the slightest and made his lips twitch into a snarling smirk. "Oh, and I'll have to ask Mukuro about all that too."

     "I am not asking to live in my own damn house!" He barked, and his hand grabbed Fran's shirt collar almost threateningly when he stared the teen in the eyes glowing with bland amusement. "What part of I live here don't you get, huh?"

     "The part where if you're really dead then, technically, this house is more vacant than yours." Fran explained without flinching at the stare he could only assume Bel was giving him behind those bangs he had the urge to swat right out of his face. "Just saying."

     Belphegor released his shirt, snapping back up with a groan when he cracked his knuckles enthusiastically and paced over the floor patiently. "Whatever. It'll just be nice having someone to bully when I get bored around here."

     "Bully? You did a terrible job then."

     "Oh, really?" Bel challenged, his swaying body approaching as he taunted the bratty house mate with his torso hovering near him vividly. His baggy clothes draping him when Fran swore he almost looked rather pale and emaciated than before when his supposedly intimidating body hung over him. "So you don't hate me for this-"

     He gave Fran's bag a rough shove again, knocking the belongings once again to the floor where Fran watched them fall away from his reach and spill out a bit where he'd picked it up countless times before.

     It was more like a chore than a bully case, and he just shrugged when seeing how much it would probably bug the hell out of his teasing friend just aiming to make him react like he did when he was striding back into the bedroom to give him a real shouting fest.

     The one that never happened since Bel was a smooth talker enough to worm his way right out of all that. Something he was probably too good at, Fran thought, but he let it slide when shrugging in resignation and gave a sigh.

     "You're getting predictable."

     He bent down carefully. The bag was on its side, just under his palm when he knelt off the edge of the surface of the bed to grab its fabric strap with ease as his stiff back cracked with popping joints from letting everything go numb wasting time just lying around and chatting with his possible ghost friend that was gone the moment his eyes jolted off the ground to notice how Bel's shadow had disappeared from the floor where it once stood.

     His form was gone from the edge of the bed, his arm no longer touching the post in the way he leaned over everything. And the door downstairs had opened again as Fran dropped the bag back on the floor this time, rushing for the den where familiar glimpses of a green jacket and navy hair flashed by to the kitchen chased by Fran who was just thankful to have food in the house for his viciously starved stomach.

 

* * *

 

 

     Even though the fridge worked, Fran chose to doubt its cleanliness, watching over the shoulder of his mentor who stocked the little bit of food he could afford into its shelves swiftly before peering back to see how Fran seemed to move about behind him as though impatient or panicked when looking around the living room.

     He was starving, for sure, but his eyes searched the crevices of the main floor on every brief sound that made him feel like Bel was still observing his movements when he waited for Mukuro to stand up from his kneeling form in front of the fridge when he yawned and passed Fran an apple when he skirted right on by him swiftly to grab another bag from the doorway he'd carried in.

     "Good morning?" Mukuro tried, but his youthful companion was gazing atop the stairs at an invisible sight that made Mukuro's bicolored eyes strain in the efforts to so much as catch a wisp of dust floating by in the distance that had the kid so entranced before darting his gaze and attention back to Mukuro giving him a weird look. "Are you okay?"

     "Why did you give me an apple?"

     "Because I can hear your stomach screaming at me from here, and you like apples." he pushed the fruit toward his mouth roughly and laughed. "Eat it."

     "You can't prove I like apples." Fran fooled, watching his mentor's face draw in annoyance when he jutted his finger out at the kid, and narrowed his eyes strongly.

     "Eat it and shut up." He laughed regardless, standing tall over the teal-haired male as he overlooked their new home peacefully as though he enjoyed the spacious sight of the fresh location to make that old apartment feel like hell while this heaven stood in its glorious place.

     But on the first bite of the apple, Fran couldn't swallow. The juices, he licked up from his lips carefully, but he was in awe for the most part and couldn't find the strength to budge so much as moving his jaw to chew when his vision caught sight of what he had been so desperately searching for just standing at the corner of his eye.

     A slender figure so boldly lingering on two feet with his arms folded and the catch of sun rays sinking into golden waves so messily wound around hidden eyes that not even Mukuro could see right in front of him when all the adult wanted to do was stare back at Fran so wondrously when wondering if the teen was okay.

     "Fran?" He called out, watching how he stood there stiff as board with the chunks of apple being roughly swallowed down when he couldn't let himself be caught dazed again unless he wanted to be caught- wondering why the hell was it possible- why was it so miraculous to see the way Bel's arms could literally graze his mentor's sleeve without so much as attracting attention.

     Mukuro only gave a glance to where he stared, the brush on his arm making him walk closer to the youth and give him a quick nudge while Belphegor couldn't have been more pleased.

     His grin grew broader, his arms sliding around his neck that he cracked when his lips parted to mouth the words Fran didn't want to hear.

     "I told you so."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the fact that I update slower than hell, but between work and answering asks on my blog it takes a while to get much done! Anyway, enjoy the slow build up for this fic. I'll have some good plot thrown in for you next chapter!


	3. Wash Away Sin

     Just across the hall. An endless reach stretched far behind a door slammed shut, hinges practically bent inward and forgotten among other things. Among everything concealed in bloody droplets blended over white tiles smeared by the likes of the scrape- the burdening fall leaving bruises, vicious brands upon skin.

     It was silent now. Soft ripples run murky with crimson pooling under a lifeless form wrapped by strangling chokes of his own blood pushed out of his lungs and every passageway stifled with misery and the clots forming under his skin. Eyes no longer open under bangs left clutching around a face stained with the lacerations one could say he deserved, while others would be left so mortified to have beheld.

     His corpse was left drifting, contained in the blood oozing below fabric clinging to his form drenched in water only lukewarm now and washing away sins meant to drown him out.

     A silenced expression muted to humiliating death shown under a tense grip of muscles and frown etched into his body permanently with hatred and vile envy. Carved up, mutilated by the lines of jagged wounds marking his chest, his neck, his exposed abdomen rippled by the touch of bath water run over his form as though hiding every last drained drop of what poured from the injuries he would retain eternally.

     Out of sight, out of the way eternally where he lie with his arm stretching along the side of reddened acrylic scratched under fingernails tired of futile resistance. Body going stiff while wound into the shadows behind a curtain to be washed clean of its lies- its scarlet tinge at the base of its shroud where pooling water rimmed the ivory with the likes of putrid, rusty blood lapping at every surface.

     Every single shred of evidence remaining to the eyes, and yet it was to all be erased into the house itself. A disappearance act like no other liar could pull off when leaving that door shut off from the rest of the world at the edge of the house where footsteps ushered about faster than ever heard within the house itself as the minutes passing became hours, and the room left at the distant rim of demise was reopened on its creaking hinges again.

     The only voice calling out the his deaf ears that of the satisfaction seeking the sounds of pain and plague when stepping through the bloodied tiles to cast a shadow over the fallen form of the innocent.

 

* * *

 

  
     Fran's shower was short-lived with peace. Teal hair was plastered around his face in sticky layers pressing down over his eyes with suds leaving a stinging touch to the peeking glance of teal daring to open under water-stained lashes that couldn't withstand the curious sounds seemingly beyond the curtain hiding his skinny form drenched in the spray of warm water.

     Moments before, when he was merely scratching shampoo deep into his scalp, he could have sworn there had been the faintest whine of the bathroom door skirting open over the dull tiles under the tub where he stood soaking away the oddly pleasant scent of cucumber of the cheap brand shampoo Mukuro had purchased.

     He was lucky to be getting a decent shower at all, really, but the thought that counted most was that he wouldn't be dealing with the gross layers of oil coating his hair nor the feel of dirty skin that made him just feel so pathetic and a mess above all just as he listened outside the running showerhead for the noises making him take in a deep sigh and lean his tired shoulder against the wall.

     "Who's in here?" His bleak voice called hopefully, his eyes resting for a few seconds after wishing for once he'd be given a straight answer over funny business and pranks that were sure to either leave him pissed off, unamused, or just left in a state of mess after Mukuro thought pranks like flour throwing and cling wrap were just hysterical.

     But there was no voice replying back to Fran as steam rose around his slender physique finally clean and feeling so much better as he took in the scent of true cleanliness when dragging his fingertips through soaked hair and priding himself in the silky way it felt along his fingers when wringing out a bit of the excess, heated water soaking down his back all at once when he turned the water off and felt the wonderful spray of water come to an end.

     "All right," Fran sighed, head jerking around the side of the shower curtain suddenly when he heard the sound he was waiting for all that time. A jostling sound of rhythmic brushing and water dripping from the sink's faucet that alerted the teen swiftly as he frowned at the sight he saw before his eyes that were far more than displeased. "Of course, how couldn't I have guessed."

     His privacy intruding guest couldn't speak, his mouth full of toothpaste when he smiled around the stick of blue and green poking out from behind his lips that Fran recognized as a toothbrush quickly, and his own, at that as he gave a disgusted groan with teal eyes rolling.

     "You're disgusting- seriously?"

     Belphegor gave a loud spit, running the water over the splat of white as he grinned rather evilly through it all. Never confirming nor denying the way he used the brat's stuff at his own will when giving that innocent smirk back at his housemate.

     And he merely left the toothbrush lying out on the counter when he stopped to look back at Fran's skinny arm pushing the curtain back to reveal the porcelain expanse of the youthful face showing gross dismay at the action he had performed so openly. Not to mention just waltzing right into the bathroom while he was taking a shower.

     "You're so skinny-" Belphegor commented when he gazed where the curtain hid the rest of Fran, and he drew it tighter to his neck with a sharp growl.

     "Get out already!"

     " _Pale_ too."

     "Oh my god- _leave_." He groaned with irritation as Belphegor gave a snort of laughter and closed the door behind his form exiting the bathroom where he left Fran tensed up by the idea that he could come back at any second.

     Fling the door wide open and reveal him dressing again in the hollow, dull bathroom in literally nothing. And Fran wasn't about to take that chance as he began drying off carefully- flinging the water out of his knotted hair and off his slender figure doused in the droplets of his shower where he was trying to dress behind the curtain as to prevent any...pranks from going underway.

     Not if he could say anything about it as he jammed his shirt over his head, gave a final shake of his teal locks, and pushed the bit of off white plastic aside to catch the sight of everything exactly the way it was left when his somehow friendly roommate had decided to actually leave him to dressing and daily prep.

_Miraculously._

     And chasing a phantom's existence through his own home felt like a nervous experience. Not knowing if Bel would pop out from hallways, closets, corners shaded from his vision when he reached the stairs and gazed down over the lower floor poured through and through with daylight making the dust soar before him in tremendous waves.

     But in the center of it all was Belphegor kicked back on the sofa with his eyes glued to tv like the lazy slacker he was in light laughter when hearing how Fran escorted himself down the stairs in erupting steps reaching the base of the steps and landing on the rug Mukuro had assumed belonged there since he had done just a touch of redecorating in the past week.

     Belphegor barely looked back at him, barely paid any new mind to the living, breathing guest in his home that wandered into the den casually with his arms shoved across his chest and staring down at the shameful blond huffing out an amused breath when he was being scolded by that typically bland expression.

     But he couldn't quite address the fact that he was going to be the one to have to complain about privacy yet again when he too was amazed by the fact that they still managed to have cable television in a home so abandoned and for years just as well. Or running water really, but he didn't want to complain about the things he was so thankful to still have.

     "We have cable?" He voiced with curiosity before giving Bel's legs a shove and knocking them off the couch where his butt plopped down on the opposite end heavily. "How is that even possible?"

     "I can't believe you didn't bother to check." Bel mocked playfully when never even looking away from the screen as though he were so deeply invested in its channels when there was probably so little he could even see through those impossible bangs of his swaying before the eyes Fran had yet to see even through the past week he'd wasted fussing over setting the place up and keeping it less than a disaster.

     "Courtesy of my brother," Bel laughed out, seemingly hissing through his teeth when he gave the arm of the couch a rough smack and rested his head back along the cushion. "May he rot in hell."

     Fran gave a _hmph_ , ignoring the response that was rather personal and dark as he found the reasons he'd chased the guy down in the first place at the front of his mind and swung at Bel with the nearest pillow he could garb by beating him with its plush touch on the side of his face.

     "That doesn't change the fact that you need to stop sneaking around everywhere." His voice rang out louder than previous answers. "I don't like wondering if you're going to watch me take a shower or if you're watching me sleep, you creep."

     "Hey, to be fair, you asked for this when you moved in here." Belphegor mused teasingly with a touch to his face that smeared away the sneezing touch of musty dust and debris. "Also, you can't prove I haven't already seen you in the shower- just saying."

     Fran's face twisted with disgust, nose wrinkling when he saw Bel smirk with amused laughter. "You're a pervert, Bel."

     "Shut up, I wouldn't want to say you naked anyway; you're too damn scrawny."

     It made Fran laugh in a way, hiding how awkward it was to hear with a strangely pleasant quirk of his lips that changed the pace and tone of things as his long legs were placed atop the coffee table carefully when heaving out a sigh.

     If his life had become anything but this, he could have sworn things were so ordinary. Things were awful ,true, but they were no different than every other struggling person trying to get off the streets and into a decent lifestyle.

     Now Fran was left sitting on the other ed of a couch with a guy he wasn't even sure was alive enough to really be breathing, though he could see out of the corner of his eyes that Bel's chest did rise and fall, and his features were still rather _peach_ over pale. _Maybe even slightly darker than himself in complexion_ , he thought, when glancing down at his downturned palm hesitantly.

     And he had been eating too, opening and closing doors when he claimed to be a master of creeping up on the teen so jarringly- laughing when he got a rise out him or made him wince with the way he popped out of rooms from seemingly nowhere.

_Then there was...Mukuro._

     "Don't think too hard," Belphegor muttered on his side of the den, crossing his leg over the other when he gave a loud hum as he stretched and clicked his tongue noisily if only to get on Fran's nerves. "You'll only hurt yourself."

     "Then just answer this," He began mercilessly, no need to think any further on reasoning the impossible or the illogical things that left him dawning on paranormal chances. "Why can't Mukuro see you?"

     "You were right there-" Fran could still recall the event like it were just moments ago. Belphegor standing so close to Mukuro, or even if he were just right in front of his eyes with that smug smile, that brush to his sleeve that Mukuro just brushed away easily without so much as a comment or complaint. Like Bel were nothing more than a carried breeze from the cracked windows that ruffled his hair. "There was no sense in how he couldn't see you- plain as day."

     Belphegor scoffed again, this time almost showing annoyance at having to constantly explain himself and his existence when whirling his head back to Fran giving him a look of demanding morals that clarified how determined he was to seek logic in the shadows of his roommate's words.

     Or his actions. Of everything because, damn, Fran was one nosy teenager.

     "Okay, fine," He hummed, voice dropping a thoughtful sound of thinking. Messing with him, breathing out a laugh when Fran's hand grabbed the pillow again to give him another whack if he had to force it out of him. "Stop threatening to hit me, Fran you don't scare me."

     He was contorting his expression into laughter in that moment, tilting his head back against the couch again when looking around the empty room that left him feeling equally as hollow inside.

     The slope of barren walls and echoing voices made his mind shrink back the questions he couldn't truly answer for certain no matter how he tried to take charge of them. It was mostly just assumption from the start, and he made his best estimate by saying the obvious.

     What little he did understand about his condition.

     "He can't see me if I don't want him to." He got out on a broad grin, teeth showing off their brilliantly white form behind pink lips that were rather feminine in comparison to what Fran would like to think. But his teeth ought to be white if the guy had been making that much use of Fran's toothbrush. "It's more fun making you look crazy. It pisses you off."

     "That's just about everything you do."

     Bel just shrugged with satisfaction, and Fran gave a sudden exhale.

     "And I remember he asked me who I was talking to the first night I slept here too," His mind recalled less vividly. But he could still sense the vague scene within his mind. When he was more angered by Bel being there than worried and was heard by Mukuro chewing him out so rudely at first.

     Which was hard to believe since he was nearly, and it somewhat churned his stomach to admit it even to himself, friendly with Bel now. Mostly just to keep the peace if anything, but he wasn't shouting and being bitter with him anymore it seemed.

     "He can't hear you either, can he?"

     There was no need to answer audibly; Bel's smiling face said the things he didn't have to when making the kid sink down into the couch in resignation.

     That was just it then. Unless Mukuro was still playing at some horrid game, and was pretending to never have seen nor heard this lying stranger clawing terrible ideas of being dead into Fran's head.

     But even his own friend wouldn't sink that low. Sure, he was older and good at a great deal of things, but Fran could always see through his terrible portrayal of his so-called acting. Contrary to belief, Mukuro was never the best with playing the role of someone so innocent, and Fran wasn't fooled for a second that Mukuro wouldn't have been smiling the entire time Bel was poking around at him or just standing about before his very eyes the way he was.

     It almost cut him deep. The realization slamming him hard when he jerked his head back to Belphegor and blurted out "That's unfair," without any need.

     "I'm sorry?" Belphegor Teased in a shallow laugh. "I get really tired of repeating the whole "I'm dead" too, you know? But I don't get to lie about it."

     "I don't care how many times you say it, idiot, that doesn't make it sound any more realistic." Fran retorted cleverly as his legs touched the floor again in a rushed urge to sit forward and turn off the tv. Maybe get some payback for walking in on his shower if he had to take the batteries out of the remote to get back at the lazy punk. "I'm pretty sure no one in this world would just believe someone going around saying they're dead."

     "Not with that attitude." He huffed. "Get over it, frog."

     "That's strike two on the French joke." He interrupted with a swing of his hand that flicked the power button off on the tv when he decided he was tired of hearing Bel's mouth run in that childish tone of his. It was either his way or no way, and Fran couldn't stand that arrogant streak in him. "Strike three says I toss your junk on the curb."

     "Do it, and you die too, you little brat." He spoke through clenched teeth in his wispy voice that tried to sound so permanently delicate and smug. His bangs were tossed a bit with the lift of his head, his hand giving the teal-haired teen a shove backward as he fit his legs back on the couch where he was practically kicking at him to keep him at the very edge of the couch. If not for the arm, Fran was sure he would have been thrown off.

     "And tell Mukuro to buy some decent food."

     "Why? _If_ you're dead you don't need to eat." Fran rudely mocked as Belphegor folded his arms behind his head and gave Fran's thigh a kick with his dark boots digging into his nicer jeans to make his face go from blank to irritated with a droop of his eyes. "Quit it-"

     "You don't even know if I need to eat or not." Bel ignored the way he reacted to having his shoes dig in against his jeans where he lie on the couch regardless. It belonged to him, the entire house did, and he wasn't one to be told what he could and couldn't do by much of anyone as long as he was still so spoiled and given into. "You don't know what it's like being dead, so bring me food."

     "Stay off our food. We can't even afford what we have."

     "Your food is my food as long as it's my house you're staying in." Was the expected reply Fran heard through the speech of the tv Bel clicked back on in a grin. His neverending expression of either blunt joy, arrogance, or just his way of getting under your skin when he brushed his fingertips through his hair tauntingly, revealing a snickering laugh when he rendered his roommate speechless long enough to see his cheeks puff out aggressively and make his head jerk back to the tv. "Fine, I'll take the silent treatment. I dealt with it for longer than you can."

     He wanted to fire back with something witty about paying the bills, or splitting the rent. A joke expected of anyone sharing their home with some lazy as hell punk sprawled out on the couch, mooching your food, and staring at the tv all day like he had nothing better to waste his life on.

     But, in addition to possibly and apparently being dead, Fran wasn't even sure how they had the utilities they did. The cable he was currently staring at blankly while the news was scrawled across the screen, the hot water he's showered off his stress and body into, the working fridge he knew Belphegor would be rifling through very soon-

     His eyes fastened on the guy again, watching how he seemed to know exactly when Fran was about to speak as he tilted his head back to him knowingly, giving his lip a bite boredly when yawning out.

     "You said your brother pays for the cab-"

     The front door was whisked open effortlessly once again, Mukuro flouncing into the place messily as he drug his boots across the rug and tossed the bag of hand-me-down clothes Fran could eye through the plastic bag Mukuro let slide across the counter while watching his caretaker give him a shake of his head.

     "Fran, quit talking to yourself." He laughed, shaking his hunter green jacket off his shoulders where he shed it on the counter in a mere, reckless throw that left the heavier fabric barely clinging to the surface of dark countertops where he just left it hanging. "Makes you look delusional."

     "Delusional's not too bad." He forced back when looking over the back of the couch into the kitchen where he saw Mukuro grab one of the bottles of water they had stored away in the fridge. Popping its cap to take a larger swig of its cold contents, while Fran chose to ration things a little better. "My grandmother made delusional fun, so I could live with that."

     "I'll bet she did." Mukuro teased playfully. being friendly as he set the bottle down and gave a sigh in the room floating with dust tickling his nose that was rather small settled upon his suave features. Almost like he were never messy nor homeless- like he were supposed to look so graceful over sloppy just to keep people from staring.

     He wanted to feel like he were better off than they were, narrowing his eyes at the tv with curiosity behind Fran who was skipping heart beats when he remembered how Bel sat beside of him calmly, watching the situation unfold yet silent as he hardly made any efforts to really tune into the conversation right then.

     But where his eyes lie was where the news was still playing, the cable shocking him when he gave his youthful friend a bewildered glance. "We have _cable_?"

     "Uh, yeah." He answered with deja vu lingering in his mind. "Weird, right?"

     "Yeah, seeing as no one so much as stays here, yet someone is...paying for television? And water?" Mukuro was confused, but only shrugged his shoulders, pretending the things that were around him didn't matter when he didn't wish to burden Fran with simple problems like money or his basic worries. "Whatever."

     It wasn't just " _whatever_ ," it was the awareness that someone would notice their bills were going up somewhere. That someone was using their water, their cable, their electricity suddenly more than ever before while Fran tried to tuck those thoughts under the layers of his blank face and sigh with hunger once again creeping into his gut in the form of a louder growl.

     One that even Belphegor noted with a chuckling laugh as he gave his friend a knowing look- more or less an " _I told you so_ " for not bringing him food when he asked.  
But it was the principle of having Bel not be right at the time when he had felt a bit hungry that made him argue.

     "By the way," Fran added suddenly as he watched Mukuro begin striding across the room into the den, his upper body leaning between where Bel and Fran sat oppositely to give the teen a near heart attack with the thought that his arm was so close to the ghostly existence only giving the companion a smug look while speaking nothing.

     "What?" Mukuro asked, allowing Fran to continue with ease as he tried to let go of all the weirdness around him in a breath.

     "I wasn't talking to myself- I was talking to the tv."

     Mukuro laughed at him, his laugh almost as strange as Bel's as it sounded as though he were stammering over his syllables suavely, reaching out his hand to ruffle silken, green hair that Fran yanked away from him swiftly in a disapproving grunt.

     "That's still talking to yourself, kid."

     "I guess."

     Fran inhaled a breath, his body sitting upright when his stomach gave another pained groan of hunger that attracted Mukuro's eyes with a softer smile. One that made the teen feel as though he were still the kid Mukuro was taking of more than just another friend that he housed.

     And Mukuro pressed his chin to the surface of his palm. "Hungry?"

     "Yeah, hurry up make us some food."

     He scoffed, turning his back in a heavy sigh when he was too bothered to fix them both actual dinner like he used to. He was lazier, caring just enough to stuff some food in the microwave on impulse and feed them full of the cheap stuff he could find just about anywhere.

     But he always had to have the last word, giving the wall a tap when he ventured back into the end of the den just staring up at the stairway patiently.

     "I don't feel like it," He sighed so sarcastically, faking sudden exhaustion as he plopped himself down into the chair across from Fran instead of nearly sitting on Bel who would have been, no pun intended, dying to have the joke of Fran's friend sitting on his lap. "You make dinner."

     Fran's eyes rolled, watching Bel lean forward toward him to whisper even when Mukuro couldn't hear him in the slightest. Nor did Mukuro so much as _flinch_ when the obvious movement Fran saw was practically right next to the teen's ear.

"I see where you get that dry sense of humour from."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the last of the introductory form of chapters. This is the turning point from stepping foot into dullness to danger, so, trust me, I hope to make things a little spicier, fluffier, and intense from here on out!


	4. Royal Pain

     What a shame that damned idiot had to be a skilled liar, the cleverness retained through the years when it mattered most while the crashing of shattered glass was flung across the room, the stumble of reckless steps heard clattering forward while the form strung out on hatred devastated the room.

     The scene surrounding him torn apart until the sights that haunted him were tattered eyes and faces glaring at him behind the shroud of clothes ripped down from their hangers- out from under the bed along with the mess he despised so much and trampled like storm clouding his own mind.

     Fuck the mess- fuck every little shard of glass protruding from his fist when he'd hit the mirror in anger, seething behind his own breathy growls and fading guilt that subsided only to more of this rage he wanted out of him. That clawing terror at the back of his head filling him with a migraine that left the place behind his eyes throbbing so immensely that his hands were thrown to stop such tremendous pain through bloodied palms and fingers that streaked through his bangs.

     It was a mess. No, not just the fucking room- the whole thing! Everything- it wasn't supposed to go this way, and yet...yet it all went to shit so fast that it left a bad taste in his mouth that couldn't just be washed out with soap or alcohol.

     No, this mistake wasn't something to be wiped out of his mind like another bad date or a drunken rampage that mocked him over the years in the form of photographs on a camera he crushed under his foot when finding it in the first drawers he'd completely ripped out from the desk left emptied and destroyed from top to bottom where all its contents lie strewn around his slouched form taking in the travesty he lie within.

     Lying among the clothes smelling of some kind of horrendous musk and home that, for once, caused him to react so bewitchingly hurt by these actions. The shrapnel at his arm reminding him of the broken and the despairingly lost things he ruined out of rage when it was too late to fix the cracks down the photo thrown aside within a frame that only made him hate it all so much worse than he did.

     Because each and every photograph had the faces of those he never knew, nor never understood- friends over family- never a single picture of him and that moron together in any one of those crushed frames that he was through with when hauling himself off the floor in a gasp of breath when glass crinkled between his palm and muscle stretching around its jagged form that jutted out from flesh that he just ripped out like it were worth the scream of pain he muffled in the sheets when standing to reach the final drawers he had yet to dump out.

     The dresser by the window, its wooden surface reached by slender hands grabbing its form and staggering close when he could barely stand to look at the pill bottles and garbage that filled its contents thrown out in the last fit of anger he could muster when the entire slot of wood was shoved out onto the floor in a loud bang to make the top floor shake.

     There was no damn reason to care about noise anymore- the worst of the sound was over. The worst part...was over.

     Upon discovering the edge of black leather linked by a chain, his eyes were relieved, smirking under the guise of pride when slipping out the sight of currency worth enough to make this pain go away. This valuable worth more than the life taken, the blood pouring from the lifeless form draining out in the bathroom until it was less of a mess to handle.

     He ignored everything else, stirring the contents in the drawer hastily when finding something worth while and nearly slamming out the rest of the way just to disguise these efforts as nothing more than a struggle- a broken conscience that he made it all look to be. A mentally conjured rampage that he was so helpless to stop when smiling to himself through the blaze of guilt shredding the bottom of his darkening heart.

     If he was going to hell, he'd go out with innocence. And he stood up from the floor, his eyes never catching the gleam of silver when turning away from the disaster he'd created and fleeing the room. What was left of it.

 

 

     Some of Bel's old clothes actually fit Fran, which was a strange event since Fran was rather short and scrawny while Belphegor was merely the scrawny factor alone with enough height to be considered closer to average.

     And most of what the guy seemed to wear were old sweatshirts, tank tops ripped out at the back as though gouged with the intention of chaining and piercings to be seen- a punk phase Fran was praying every day that he was glad to have not had to witness such a thing himself.

     It made him shudder and cringe just thinking of that creep alone clad in those ripped jeans and baggy sleeved sweaters in a phase worse than the scene phase he'd dreaded to hear about.

     Some things, however, weren't too awful in appearance- simple stripes and tees done in basic colours that Fran could withstand wearing if for the sake of just having some extra clothes on his back for the colder months to come. Seeing as the frost outside the windows was already lain over browning grass, winter wasn't far off as it was, and he had next to no choice in the matter if he wasn't looking forward to freezing every night in the drafty, old place.

     He had, at that moment, lifted out a rather dull sweatshirt. Its grey colour stained by lighter blotches whether through acid washed style or its own mistakes since Bel seemed pretty sloppy in most everything he did, and that didn't shock Fran who had carelessly flung aside the fabric into the heap of other clothes he wouldn't be wearing.

     And that's when the shine of something at the base of bleak grey and faded burgundy had Fran's reflection caught in its surface. It's sleek form attracting Fran's fingers to pluck it out from the wooden bottom of a drawer that had been seemingly destroyed with the random junk Bel had thrown into its midst with clothes the guy had seldom worn.

     It was more of a junk drawer, yes, but it still seemed like quite a leap to be mixing knives into the mix. Especially those wide and sharpened at the tip where it seemed so glisteningly clean and appealing to the eyes examining its solid frame that he handled with caution.

     It chalked up to Bel just hoarding everything. Everything from clothes to wrappers Fran couldn't begin to explain when he discarded them like they were something worse- condoms or something. He didn't want to know, but some part of him found the idea of Bel mocking him for it amusing since it gave the kid a few reasons to drill the idea of cleaning up a bit into that guy's brain.

     Knife aside, Fran had just let it sit on the desk across from him. His vision forgetting its existence to deal with the greater mess at hand that meant cramming all the useful crap back into Belphegor's terrible pack rat dresser.

     And the rat was never far from his nest as Bel had appeared in the frame of the door, leaning against the old wall with a grimacing look at the way Fran had begun towering up his clothes in a few piles. His eyes unseen but ripping from place to place while the kid sighed.

     Mouth full, he was drinking down the broth of his warmed ramen that tasted as stale as the date claimed when he took its flavour down regretfully and shook his head.  
But he talked with his mouth next to full anyhow just to piss Fran off. "Wha- do y-ou 'hink you're -oing wit' my stuff?"

     "Talking with your mouth full? That's so very classy of you." Fran stressed with his words drawn out and critical. And his expression clouded with great disapproval the moment he could realize that Belphegor was yet again eating their food since it hadn't dawned on him just what Bel could have fished out of the barren cabinets even after being warned not to. 

     He put down the folded mess, stubbornly shooting that lowered brow look that made Bel shrug with a grin that spoke for itself in knowing what he did was wrong.

     "I told you stop eating our food- we don't have enough for the living in this house."

     He just slurped down a few noodles loudly. His response egging Fran on, yet he didn't feel the need to turn and deck Bel yet since he wasn't even sure if it would do any good to wail on a guy who was supposedly dead as dead could be. Whatever that was.

     "How about shutting the door too before Mukuro thinks I'm losing my mind for talking to myself." Fran insisted. "That is, if you want to stay and bother me for some reason."

     "Oh, so you've decided to finally agree that I'm a-" Bel raised the hand that held his fork to give a rather dramatic wave. "-Ghost?"

His theatrical existence was so strong that even Fran had his doubts on how people couldn't see Bel acting out and saying things dumber than the uneducated slobs Fran had seen in his time. But somehow it seemed that every exaggerated, crazed, stupid action that guy gave was unseen and unheard to anyone but the haunted of choice- he wanted to hear a drumroll in his head- Fran himself!

     And he was never too thrilled with that idea in the slightest.

     Fran had ventured around the looming Belphegor, shutting the door himself in a deep sigh. "I know that, for some reason, Mukuro can't see you."

     "Oh really?"

     "If you're going to be sarcastic and a pain, you can walk right through that door." Fran retorted, gesturing to the closed surface while Bel snickered anyway and crammed more pasta into his mouth. "I'm assuming you can do that much if you're really dead."

     "No one likes a skeptic, kid."

     "Then stop opening all the doors- you're letting heat out." He enforced just to hear the dirty blond laugh and lean back against the bed of his bedroom. "For a while I just thought Mukuro was just playing some kind of joke on me."

     There was a pause long enough for Bel to stretch back onto the wasted pile of clothes while Fran urgently moved back to his cubby in the corner by the dresser just to toss some jeans over Bel's face and scoff.

     "Hey-"

     "That pineapple would do something like that, but it was too much effort and money to be keeping you here anyway." Fran replied so stiffly. His voice ticking Bel down from his high horse bit by bit when he chucked the jeans to the floor and grumbled over it like he were too mighty to be treated like a waste basket.

     "Why do you call him a-"

     "I don't want your pants; they're hideous and gross." Fran talked over him. "You might as well keep them or throw them out."

     "You aren't throwing out my clothes!" His voice seethed out through false laughter, yet the kid didn't seem intimidated like the rest of the people he had messed with were. Fran just stared him down, those blankly teal eyes showing the best of his lack of concern until Bel just knocked the tower of shirts to the floor with a swing of the arm carrying his ramen. "You live in my house- remember?"

     Belphegor swore he'd made a threat too far over the borders; his craned neck could see where Fran jerked around. His body twisting to the desk area where his arm seemed to reflexively aim for the place Bel could barely see between the books and magazines.

     The place where gleaming metal was pulled and shining against Fran's pale skin in such grave contrast when the teen held it up to show as though ready to plunge it down into the ghostly being of his housemate.

     There came Belphegor's destructive laugh. His humiliatingly wispy laugh that had its own syllables to breathe on while he tossed his hair to the side, his hidden eyes blinking under the mess just to question the way Fran held the knife toward him.

     "Are you going to kill a ghost? Fun!"

     "I found it in your dresser, Bel, you tell me." He sighed, lowering the blade suspiciously when turning it over in his palm so curiously that it kept Bel's attention as fixed to him as he could have expected when he was caught fiddling with the guy's stuff. Like when he was rooting through what he saw as trash and Belphegor just hovered him like there were buried treasure with a bland look and a plastered smile.

     If he didn't honestly think Belphegor was just the type to be obnoxious, he would swear there were things Belphegor didn't want found. Something that Fran didn't know how it could be any worse than being told that the one he was living with was apparently dead.

     "Why keep a knife in your dresser anyway?"

     "Why not?"

     His voice was worse than a knife. It was jagged, twisting out an excuse through the sharpness of his tone that spat out the words viciously when he didn't feel the need to explain himself, or just didn't want to relive the explanation Fran could assume he had been forced to give before.

     "Why ask questions- you know, since you were just going to throw my shit out anyway." Belphegor had rolled his eyes on his own comment- not that his dearly sarcastic friend could have seen it. "Just give it here."

     Food didn't matter anymore it seemed. Bel was very capable of finishing that ramen later when he set it down on the desk and snatched the weapon away rashly right out of Fran's fingers that didn't get the second chance to hold it away from the aggressive jerk of another pair of hands then clasping its solid handle of silver.

     It was more than a knife. It was sleek to the caress of fingers tracing down swirls patterned on a curved blade. A slender thing built with lasting edges that were sure to leave a gash as nasty as Fran had seen on movies.

     Belphegor merely enjoyed its cool touch, gliding the head of its pinched edge toward his face where it barely missed grazing the poofy hair of Bel's that stuck out like he hadn't bothered brushing it since he woke up.

     That point aside, Belphegor liked watching the blade gleam in the window's light, holding it up to see how his pride felt as though it hinged on that powerful weapon that Fran lowered by pushing Bel's arm down at the bicep.

     "Yeah, put that down." He insisted blankly, shoulders slouching to pretend he truly didn't care one way of the other. "You're freaking me out with that smile."

     So he was grinning. Belphegor was smiling with those nearly damn perfect teeth- wider than madness stretching over peach skin as he let the knife drop down to his side with a spinning stride that faced Fran.

     He laughed. "What? Scared of me?"

     Fran stopped in bending to remove some of the last clutter from the carpet to give an easy glance back at the noble look Belphegor shot him. Only because he was proud in having freaked the brat out regardless if he'd meant to or not.

     "Scared of ghosts-"

     "Absolutely- mmhm, never been more terrified in my whole life." Fran joked in a yawn. And his company scoffed with displeasure at the lack of response, or perhaps, the addition of the unnecessary sarcasm. "If you have anything you're so dead set on keeping you should hide it somewhere now before it goes in the trash."

     Bel growled in his throat, adjusting his shirt sleeves closer to his thin shoulders when he leaned forward behind Fran's back and twirled the fanciful weapon in his grip. The intricate device was in perfect sync with his motions, fingers gliding down its handle to spin it like it were practiced more than he wanted to remember when watching the blur of Fran's dark shirt retreat to the exit.

     The teen's eyes had avoided facing Bel for many reasons. Most of which included not wanting to waste time becoming yet another victim of Bel's terrible sense of humour that meant being stabbed in the back- possibly in the literal sense if he decided to hang around more than he had to.

     The other reasons were simply that Belphegor was a nuisance, and Fran had no time to put up with dumb arguments and bitter complaining over how bored he was.

     Then again, leaving him bored just made Bel want to keep wasting their food with his stupid, dead body.

     "Hey." 

     Oh great, now was the time when Bel mentioned he could probably read minds now. His eyes, though hidden like piercing daggers, staring into the back of his open mind like a painting that now called him stupid in huge, crimson letters that Fran expected to hear more of a fuss over even before he was starting to jerk himself around to face him.

     His eyes were closer to the ceiling, the silver flash sliding through the air making Fran want to dodge back even though the soaring blade landed securely back in Bel's fingers again in one of his spectacularly disgusting grins.

     "What?" Fran asked with an assumingly distant expression that wanted nothing more than for Bel to put that knife down already since it was only making Fran feel nervous.

     "Let's watch some horror movies-"

     "Excuse me?" The teen interjected with disbelief before Belphegor had even stopped talking over him. Mashing his words over Fran's nonsensical complaints that the royal pain in the ass wouldn't hear.

     "Yeah, blood, gore, pathetic peasants getting theirs bodies ripped apart for their stupidity- come on!" Bel stepped in closer, his hand setting down the knife suddenly when he swung his bangs further to one side. Those eyes edging so damn close to view yet hidden no matter what when Fran only stared at him like he were either crazy or dumb for suggesting it. "We can watch it downstairs."

     "You're trying to get me caught by Mukuro, aren't you?"

 

 

   
     It was that time of night when Fran barely knew if it was too early or too late. He could hardly read the clock with eyes blinking so rapidly just to adjust to the slightly brighter light of a clock glowing nearby with blank, red numbers blaring off into the depths of a room filled with more tension than they could stand.

     Or maybe that was just how Fran felt when his head leaned against the frame of the bed, the comfort of the bed sheets swishing by his ear whenever the dirty blond above seemed to shift up top in a silent amusement with the gore streaming by his eyes like pixels on a screen are what got him his sick thrills.

     Hell, he laughed at them. He laughed at the misery and murders like they were a comedy film of the best caliber, while Fran only grimaced and found them distastefully filmed.

     Unrealistic- the amount of blood impossible for the reality of the life still keeping her eyes open on screen- fighting like she hadn't been drained out yet while even Bel seemed to know that. But just didn't care when he expressed a liking toward the violence in a smile that left the teen yawning just to avoid looking him in the eyes when Bel caught his gaze.

     He wasn't about to fight for his bed back in the dead of night, or morning, and he wasn't going to start wrestling a ghost over hogging blankets like a bickering couple either in the case that Belphegor really would offer out a side of the bed.

     No thanks, Fran thought, the floor was more than open since he had managed to get all the junk cleared out and livable again. And even Bel had to appreciate that since he was sure that bedroom hadn't been cleaned for a decade or more.

     "The ending was predictable." Fran judged by the end of the film that pleased his exhausted eyes hiding their need for sleep while Belphegor gave a yawn just as well and craned his neck down to the youth. "Cheap scares, cheap effects- is cheap just your taste in movies?"

     "I'd say the same for your sense of humour."

     There was an eye roll, Fran's body sitting up to stretch out a bit just as Belphegor started talking again without the whole spitting out insults thing just to put a downer on the rather tense atmosphere between them both.

     "It's not my favourite movie either, so chill out." Belphegor sighed, hand toying with the edge of the bed when he spoke clearly, eyes watching the credits roll in a typical boredom that began the moment there wasn't something attracting his attention or entertaining him like he were no more than a child. "Trust me, that bitch would have been dead long before then. People just don't get where vitals are either; I swear."

     "Your problem is because they didn't kill them off in the right way?" Fran commented as he noted it, listening to the prattle with a half lam tone drowning out under the dramatic music of the ending sequence that neither seemed so interested in. Just low class actors forced into a generic film for pathetic amounts of cash. "That's pretty sick."

     "Oh, kill me why don't you." He joked above Fran in a laugh Fran easily mocked perfectly just to feel that heavy pinch to the back of his neck in return to have him grabbing for the hand that retreated in a swat at his hair the moment Bel jerked back up on the bed and out of reach. "And put the next movie in before I get bored and stab a knife in you instead-"

     "Would that be real enough for you then?" The teen said just to jostle the bossy male's attitude a bit. nd it certainly got the reaction he wished for when Bel was about to give him another smack that Fran held away from him by force when he slipped just under Bel's reach lazily. "Or do I need to scream or something?"

     "Kinky," Bel snickered. "Put in the dvd-"

     "Do it yourself, lazy."

     He expected to hear or feel some form of the ghost's wrath, his body moving about on the bed when Fran was done breathing out taunts and giving a little more reasoning with his sassy remarks that usually earned him a thump or irritated sigh in the least from Mukuro. Of who was probably rolling over in his bed just with every time Fran had to make some sarcastic joke.

     "I don't even know what movies you're into anyway, so you pick one." Fran explained as the silence broke when Bel was heaving out a sign and throwing himself over the side of the bed like it were a chore forcing him onto the floor and bending him down to dig about in the cabinet below the tv blaring music and secret scenes that they both ignored.

     "Royalty shouldn't have to do things themselves."

     "That's stupid; you aren't royalty." The teen retorted brashly. "And pick a decent movie this time that actually makes sense. Like, you know, unlike you saying you're like a prince or something."

     "Royal bloodline, you little brat!" Bel jabbed a dvd case out at him edgingly, risking the loudness of his tone because Mukuro couldn't hear a word of his playful aggression. Nor any of the obnoxious sounds he seemed to make- namely that laugh making Fran's ears want to ring from the second he could hear it like a whistle of wind sweeping through the cracks of the window. "Born and raised as royalty abroad, so that means you bow to me, okay?"

     "My ass." Fran muttered cruelly, his comment making the wicked male's face light up in a sick grin while popping in the next disc. His busily moving figure hardly paying any mind to it when Fran asked the question suddenly hitting his mind. "What country were you thrown out of th-"

     "I'll give you one chance to shut the fuck up." Belphegor swore, his hand snapping over his compnay's lips in a pinch that he couldn't have seen coming like it were merely a flash. A blur that was unstoppable and unseen as Fran hated the way it was like Bel had read his mind or was just so used to the senseless comments that he was prepared at any second to make sure that mouth stopped running like a leaky faucet. "Like Mukuro kept saying- there's nothing duct tape can't fix."

     "I bet he loves you spying on him." Fran was muffled, but still talking until forcing belphegor's hand away when he was plopping down on the bed again while Fran stood watching with a raised brow at the action. "Haven't you ever heard that sharing is caring- trade me. You sit on the floor and let your butt go numb for a while."

     "Gross, no way."

     The laugh he gave haunted the teen, the body across the bed inching back so that there was a sliver of its surface open for Fran to take a seat upon even though it hurt the royalty so much to be kind when he could just have his whole bed to himself like the selfish bastard he was and always would be.

     "Stop complaining and take a seat, peasant." He spoke grossly with a jerk of his head that made sure he didn't give one lick of attention to how Fran's arms folded particularly and eyed him over.

     "Move."

     "Yeah, right, that'll happen. Don't ever tell me what to do."

     Fran could only sigh unenthusiastically over the whole fiasco- drawing out his groan of annoyance when all he could think of were all the stupid pranks Bel was surely dying to pull. Welcoming him up on the bed just to shove him off and get one damned laugh out of it in the heat of the moment.

     Yeah, ha-ha, like Fran wouldn't see that coming the moment he was trying to pull a fast one and weasel his arm a little too close.

     "And I'm just supposed to trust that you won't do anything funny? As far as I'm concerned, you're a stranger, and I won't trust you."

     "Funny?" Bel scoffed. "Like what? Making moves on you- in your dreams."

     "Hey, you said it, not me." Fran shrugged, teal hair framing his unamused face when he finished what he really had in mind. "I was thinking more strangling, pushing off the bed, pinching me because you kinda are a jerk."

     "Sounds more like your problem than mine though, doesn't it?"

     They would fight and argue, teal eyes going blank whenever Bel just stared back at him like he were taunting him with that sickly joyous smile. His body still allowing the kid to slide in next to him just before he blocked him with the way his body rolled over into the space like Fran would have expected and yet he denied it.

     Scooting back onto his side the moment Fran shoved him over at the words "Just kidding," and got into the farthest edge of the bed he could without so much as grazing Bel's shoulder next to him, his body uncomfortably sideways and facing slightly off from the tv while Bel sat all over the place and cracking remarkably dumb jokes over the grotesque scenes their eyes beheld through the silence keeping Mukuro from slinging open that door and forcing Fran to go to bed like he used to when he was practically a real kid back then.

     And even when Bel seemed so harmless, so innocently watching the movie that entertained him, Fran found no pleasure in being so close to him. His body standing when Belphegor was either too unconscious to hear him or too reckless to care that the teen was then flopping over on the floor once again and muttering how he should never trust degenerate princes.

 

 

  
     Once again time escaped Fran; it was dawn, he could tell of that through the sliver of glass he could see when casting a look down the sheets of the bed he then lied in. His head in pain from the hours of focusing on a screen- his legs splayed out over the softer surface while he yawned and couldn't manage to conjure up the sense of what time it could be or why he couldn't get to sleep again.

     But there's so much on his mind. A lot of unflattering thoughts of things he could have lived years without ever having to probe his mind for answers to- mostly because he had no real answers.

     Bel was gone from the bed, the bed where Fran now lie by himself after spending the night with his back pressed to a hard floor where he surely should have felt Bel's presence since he would have pinned Bel as the type of guy to purposely give him a kick before leaving the bedroom.

     Not only was Fran unsure of lying on the bed after that, but if Belphegor was even able to sleep at all. Or if he was just wasting the night torturing Mukuro by slamming cabinet doors and the fridge like a haunting they would never forget.

     And, speaking of Mukuro- had he left yet? Or was he still downstairs just putting together some things? He wasn't one to leave without a note or popping in on Fran first, but he didn't necessarily want to wake him up either.

     Fran could be alone in the house- sleeping in a bed that wasn't his with that smothering scent of must and antiques suffocating him like dust vacuumed through his clogged senses and sinuses aching from the scent of stale rooms and dry wood.

     Part of that made him feel nervous. Every little bit of those haunting and disturbing thoughts that made his spine shiver under the covers draped along his body awkwardly from the prior night all a blur to him now.

     Maybe Belphegor just left; not the room, but the house itself if he could- could he leave the premises if he tried? It bothered him to not know since it was only making his morning more and more sleepless with every footstep he thought he heard and every thought he couldn't conclude.

     Never being able to leave wold drive Fran crazy. His mind sure to turn to mush when contained in a house so dull, drab, as boring as hell could only be when he stared back at the bleak, dull walls in a breath he drew in on a yawn.

     But he drug his vision down. The lack of something certain catching his eye when he started to drag himself up into a sitting position no matter how tired he was and hoping he could just fall back into his pillow and forget everything even if it meant living with the idea that the knife that once lie on his dresser was now gone and leaving a space Bel never bothered to fill.

     It was only likely that he had chosen to take it when he'd left, and Fran couldn't find it in him to worry about that yet even when Mukuro was popping his head into the door and giving an obnoxiously clear laugh.

     "Look at that, you're awake!"

     Fran groaned when he sat up after a struggle. "You sound like every typical adult; congratulations on being boring."

     His feet had swept down to the floor then, finding that what was once clean was now littered with the mess of clothes he'd put away. The magazines knocked again to the floor where Fran tried to stand and huffed out an annoyed breath when it all hit him.

     Belphegor hadn't only left last night after Fran had gone to sleep.

     "You should really clan this mess up-"

     A door slammed down the hall. The bedroom door that Mukuro had left open now closed up from his sight as he jumped further into Fran's doorway and dug his fingers deep into the frame as though he were plotting to start swinging his fists at a ghost if they started any funny business.

     His eyes had narrowed, growling with a laugh that made Fran turn to look at his friend in time to catch how Mukuro muttered something that could only make the teen laugh.

     "I am starting to think our new home is haunted."

     "That's stupid."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update right before my babes Bel and Rasiel's birthday! Go me! <3 Holiday rush blows though, hence the late update. Sorry! <3


	5. Blood Drop Dreams

     It sounded as though every bite was another loud drag of plastic where Fran scraped cereal through the slosh of milk, his mouth pressed around a spoon as he felt eyes rest on him through the thin space he shared with a ghostly guest sipping down a glass of water Fran had shoved across the table as though pushing away Bel's cravings to snatch away his bowl of dinner.

     It wasn't unlikely that he would; In fact, Belphegor had thought about it if only to tease the poor kid, and make him regret wasting his time drinking this flat, bitter, glass that had his tongue feeling dead from the way its lukewarm taste flooded over his mouth and made him swallow hard.

     The place as old, the pipes probably backed up after the past many years in waste tat Bel never felt the need to spend his time on. Never thinking of the simple things like drinking water for the shreds of his humanity or just showering when his body never changed in the slightest.

     But he watched as Fran chewed slowly, twirling the spoon in the bowl where his fingers held to it tight, and out of reach absently.

     He was never silent for long, Fran, he would start branching off another strange topic about Bel's haunting life- speaking as though being dead were merely a another concept of wonder like the ocean- or space.

     Asking things like purgatory, or about other supernatural creatures as though Belphegor would have every answer simply because he'd kissed death's blade, and wound of between the boundaries wincing every time Fran spouted off more nonsense.

     "So they don't work?" He asked again, this time, leaning forward a bit as he nudged at the bowl on the table before him. "Like, nothing at all?"

     "Any idiot can use a ouija board if they're dumb enough," Bel groaned as he drummed his nails on the table's surface. "What difference does it make? They're pointless."

     " _Why_?"

     "You're talking to me right now." His hand surged across the table in a gesture, eyebrows raised under his messy bangs while the kid companion just rolled his eyes. "What would be the point- we can talk if we want. You're all just boring as hell."

     "You were like me once- alive, that is, never that smart." Fran's comment drilled a hole in his attitude, his body starting to leap out of his chair in a stubborn quirk of his jaw that meant he was both annoyed and yet humoring the brat that just escaped his arm shooting out for the kill.

     "I don't need a stupid board to talk." Belphegor muttered back at the table where Fran's back faced just as he set down a bowl rained of its milk where he drank it away and let the dirty dishes lie for Mukuro's clean up since he was gone for the night.

     His nightly disappearances as frequent as Fran remembered from every other home they lived where he spent the days and nights alone with food somehow appearing in the fridges over night like a ghost, excuse the joke, had left it behind as way of apology.

     Their way of saying they were sorry he was mostly alone day after day and rotting off into the darkness of places without light, while this one had ancient bulbs dimmed with time that didn't dare count while Bel was around.

     It felt as though it were unspoken rule to leave behind the reasons behind his death or the amount of years he'd wasted just lying around like a lazy lump on the couch so horrendously old and tacky that it left a distasteful grimace on Fran's face when he walked by its musty sight in a sigh.

     His limbs stretched when he walked, Belphegor's own legs standing when he felt no need to keep sitting by himself at the lonely dining room table that left his heart dropping.

     Those chairs were always empty across from him, casting hollow shadows where his own did not dare trickle and dance with his swift choking of food when he lived and breathed. Yet everything still felt the same when his mind found ways to paralyze him in thoughts that haunted him worse through the years.

     "I'm going to sleep," The teen not stopping to look at him said in a mumble as his legs carried him past toward the stairs that flowed between the boards slicing the room in half where one side seemed to be darkened by night falling upon the grass Bel gazed over with an absent worry that divided him as Fran finally stuck his vision over him proddingly with some expectancy of a reply despite claiming he couldn't have cared less about what Belphegor the unfriendly ghost had to say.

     "No retorts? No sassy comments to make me mad, or annoy me?"

     Bel turned his head in a wicked grin. "You're _right_ \- I'll slam around some pots and pans to keep you up later." His words were oozing with truth that had Fran disappointed that he'd even asked.

     "Of course you will, you fake prince." They weren't words meant to cut him like knives or do any real damage, but they were little jabs at his sticking pride that Bel had to deal with as he clenched his teeth from saying anything he'd soon regret since there was no such thing as having the last laugh with Fran around. It was simply endless war night after night with loaded guns of insults just firing away into silence when Mukuro Rokudo wasn't around to hear them bicker and play like children having their quarrels.

     Retreating steps upon the barren stairs sounded hollow- fast-paced through immense silence slamming his conscience like a truck that made his brain ache like a migraine could set in deep to his mere skull gashed from behind where he habitually grazed like it were the pains he still felt from his past and not the suffocating memories that flooded by in the glimpse of what lie outside the window that kept him inside.

     A dark hood edging of the raven hair glinted by violet when ruffled through breezes passing through the cloak they held to their form like old days when they walked alongside Bel through thick and thin after streets went dark, and lights made them seem taller through sleek shadows stretched at their boots set on the drive way so empty that the shadows alone made it seem crammed and eerie.

     A rather feminine face appeared to his vision, standing at the lot's end with a faint smile that seemed to meet his own with a comforting apology he would crave whenever he saw their face flit by his eyes even if it was sealed behind thin glass rattled by the overgrowth of trees and their swaying leaves.

     He forced himself to tear his eyes away after so long. Finding that the outside was hard to face when he was long gone- and the world around him was a slap to the face for damned sure when it moved right on without him.

     Because when he was a teenager, still was, but preserved, he would think about what it was like for his own thoughts and awareness to be trapped in his own brain.

     That he could only be himself and couldn't control what lie around him because he could only move and possess his own body, yet that felt strange. Like he were the center of a godly plan because only he could matter in some peculiar way that unsettled him- because only he could control his body while the world spun out and proved him wrong as though he were pushed aside at the edge of rippling water that left him swept under currents that pained him to see what grew up and what died.

  _But the one thing he wanted dead went on._

 

* * *

 

  
     They waited to see if his youthful face would reappear; his hair grown so long those eyes once painted by despair and lingering with the emotions of bitter death had disappeared under tides of wavy gold that made him look so pathetically sunken inward on himself.

     It was letting go that made Bel seem weaker, but his rage was a contained, chained, beast leashed behind a dizzy smile that felt as intimidating as a dog's canine teeth fastening into your throat when it was the last sight you'd ever see.

     Mammon stood by the lot like a hound of their own of sorts- eyes following from window to window coated by ivy vines slowly tearing themselves off the walls like they were tired of the same old sights and travel that came by year after year in the house rotted so terribly that shingles had detached.

     The porch was deteriorating like wet much and mold taking over the front posts still carved by knives whittled into destruction on the nights spent outside on summer evenings with someone they could care for without needing affection or anything but friendship from someone as wild and thrilling like Belphegor who wasted away in that chain fence now.

     But he was gone from what they could see in the wind tackling their body and battering them from the footsteps at their back that approached distantly about this barren street through forestry thicker than anyone could have heard rumours from beyond the way Rasiel would have liked.

     The truth was as withered as dead reeds in side yard- as the partially broken glass sloped along the old basement door chained down as a last resort to protect, not what lived within, but what wandered close.

     Mammon hummed to themselves when strolling a bit further around to the side of the house sitting lonesomely by the darkest street there could have been. The sight of lights clinging to the windows and the new additions to the place they recalled well letting them know that more than Bel resided within that terrible place, and made them smile.

     He didn't deserve to be lonely, but what he did deserve took patience and time, and they were satisfied with whatever he would have asked of them.

    _Soon._

     If only Bel weren't so lazy, he could have-

     Steps behind them had closed in, their halting scuff making Mammon slowly start forward from the home they longed to venture inside once again just as soon as the tides beckoned them back in like a whisper as they moved further along the curb Mukuro Rokudo stood upon just as well with a voice calling out to the stranger moving away from him silently.

     Their only sound that of a scoff as their turned back never once offered to show their hidden face under fabric that they kept tucked down over their wispy locks of purple strands that fell a bit loose from their hood.

     Part of Mukuro didn't wish to follow them anyhow. The idea that he would turn that corner and find them vanishing rather creepy in thought as he shook his head, tucked his bag close, and started over the lawn with hesitation.

     Like eyes were peeled to look for him. Like something from every haunting window glared at him as he walked in closer to the looming beast of a salvation that peered back at him like the two windows up top were a pair of scaly eyes staring daggers at how he invaded its realm.

     And he watched the very places the stranger had looked to with nervous intent. As though he feared truly catching the unfamiliar eyes of yet another strange face within his own " _home_ " that Fran was within right at this moment.

     His worries more for the poor kid he left abandoned here day after day while he crept between weaving shadows and up to the cobblestone walkway barely leading him between hefty patches of overgrown grass that tracked at his calves miserably.

     Wispy breaths of air like the whispers he swore he heard the way he could hear Fran's voice- plain as day speech that spoke like anyone else, but in a tone he'd never before listened to. never a voice Mukuro could recall when he thought about Chrome back in a safe place with Ken and Chikusa- because he couldn't take them back here.

     Not when the doors slammed threateningly when he dared enter its threshold. And the objects he turned his back on seemed to crawl away into places he couldn't have reached.

     It made his skin crawl to imagine what left the tv on all night when Fran was tucked into bed, and the drafts in the room grew intense where he passed like he felt someone's hand lay on his bare shoulder just to give him an icy grip of threat.

     And Mukuro never once wanted to call this place their home if it weren't for Fran who seemed to be fine with every eerie twist consuming them both as Mukuro slowly avoided the door's heavy creak by sliding through the crack of its solid edge, and the person peeking down at him from the higher windows only blinked before passing back into the halls with heavy footsteps he wanted to be heard.

 

* * *

 

  
     "Don't wake up," Bel's voice breathed softly into the realms which Fran could not hear, not unless Bel willed him to so much as notice the way he moved within the room only he could still see.

     The walls dusted in a lesser shade of violence where cracks did not need to exist- where the mirror was still there and thrashed by shattered glass and never ending screams reflecting in his bloodied reflection making him flinch away from its surface without thinking about the reality this denied.

     It was all over- he was dead, the game of war and risk was finally done after ten years were long gone down a drain that was so scented by coppery blood soaked clan out of his body that crept between hindered pulse as Fran looked so deathly when he slept in the bed that Bel knew as his own once.

     Where mint green hair replaced the gold waves Bel used to drown out there when he would drool into the fabric cover- snoring bleakly into the soft surface where his companion now breathed slowly and softly in a half stretched out form that showed how short he was when his feet didn't quite reach the edge like Bel did.

     He was smaller, more fragile in looks when he was slender and curling together almost as if reacting to the way Belphegor leaned over him. His own shadow removed when only living beings could leave their mark on the world, while his were undone spirals unwinding daily like he'd never so much as breathed the same, bitter, cruel air.

     His hand could graze Fran's shoulder aimlessly. His touch invisible and cold, yet unfelt aside from the crude draft that blew along Fran's cheek as he slept with a careful wrinkle of his nose that couldn't have felt when Bel grew attached to this sensation of not being so alone. This strange amusement with having someone to finally speak to after he was left to fend for himself, and just wishing there someone who would enjoy it when he crawled closer to them and let him wrap his hand around their wrist cautiously when his touch practically fell through the real skin he touched gingerly.

     "You can't feel me..." He said aloud then, seating himself at the edge of his bed just to curl around Fran's back. To reach around him and feel how the warmth drained out of his interest's skin like he were stealing away the life he held while he slept peacefully through the steps downstairs just waiting for dawn to abandon them again.

     His fingers were unknowingly clammy- his eyes closing when his head lie close to Fran's hair that was soft in a way that there were not knots within silk. The damn, lucky, brat. Nothing to make him look so ratty or a mess even though he was the one homeless and staying within a garbage dump like this like he were fond of the company even a ghostly existence could give. Like he felt the same pain that Bel did when he squeezed the wrist his fingers slipped along soothingly through his thought.

     The world made them both alone. The change around them driving him insane enough to feel something he never could have- _never!_

     Belphegor hated romance- he hated affection, kissing, touch- it was something he could never explain when it wasn't just...when it was meant to be more than pleasure and lust that burned his mind.

     This wasn't lust of any form he'd known. It wasn't skin contact or the sight of gore that was exciting him as his nose nudged against Fran's hair and watched him shiver when the cold finally got to him and his breath became that of a steam due to the utter chill consuming him as Bel settled away from his body sadly.

     He wouldn't be alone. And Fran wouldn't either.

 

* * *

 

       
     Beneath the floor, he sat in shrill darkness. The shade engulfing the sight of his form huddled to the wall by the stairs where all the surrounded him was the musty scent remaining of blood and dreams.

     The gored aroma of seared shrapnel and screams trapping him internally by binds unseen, yet felt tearing through the skin of his wrists and fleshy abdomen still scarred endlessly by memory and betrayal carving him out like the viscera exposed when his flashing pain made him appear as what he really was.

     Belphegor's nails dug into concrete floors, his breath jagged when he laughed out. His voice wispy the way his nightmares remembered.

     His back smacking back into the dense wood of the stairs as he let his head impact the solid surface hard enough to wonder if he still felt agony like he used to with groans and shouts for help that never did any good because maybe he deserved what he got in the end, but he hated it.

     He hated being the one who was consumed with evil and hatred while another was seen through rose-coloured glasses tinted by shady intent and lies that Bel spat out in their face more than once while he mocked them in his own mind broken by guiltless violence- bleeding nose that he wiped away senselessly to be absorbed into his marbled skin that revealed slender physique through trembling muscle that showed more than scars when he was left dwelling on the past that mammon repeated in their own words again and again.

     The story that drove him to the brink of insanity because it was all too true. Because he was no innocent victim, but, rather, a scheming liar that played his role a little too late in the game that upheld his first strike because he was just too slow.

     His own death spelled out for him on tv screens- his missing body still the talk of the town as his distressed, lying, trashy brother escaped by the skin of his teeth through a robbery that never happened because his brother was never seen that night, and Bel was simply never seen again even when his hatred resonated through the whole corner of town.

     Spilling like the blood from his opened wounds onto the cellar floor where he dared drag his fingers over them harshly and hear his own laughter when pain felt better than happiness now. Happiness didn't free him, guilt didn't end anything, and violence was the only thing that kept him enthralled with this dull, disaster he still lived.

     But, somewhere in his delusions, Belphegor felt their touch to his hair. All a memory that swayed his mind away from the rage he unleashed when it trembled in his veins and made his fists clench so tight they became white with fury and bloated water where he'd lie floating for so long.

     Mammon cleaned him up from blood to pale skin, sunken in eyes seen when they examined him, and tried to say that he would be fine. That he would be okay even if he was dead to the world.

     His body shaking still when it was merely days after then- maybe weeks since time was eluding him the way Mammon's voice did now when they used to tell him they'd help set everything right when the time came because they were supposed to always be there for him. That's what friends were for.

     At least, that's what they said when Belphegor sat there with bulging eyes just gaping at walls like he'd seen the true gates of hell and burned in their fires. He'd seen his fate, and there was nothing he could change that would make his act any worse.

     The steps above were closer than before, looming at the door of the basement where Mukuro stood defensively at the sounds his mind couldn't remove from his conscience howling at him to head down the darkened steps to the place where lights refused to flicker or reveal what lie at their distant edge crying out in that whimpering laugh chuckling out like it were weakened by water in the back of their throat and soaking in choked blood that made Mukuro's skin shiver around his bones.

     The opened door gave no signs of revealing its darker secrets as Bel looked at the figure standing over him with piercing eyes fastened upon his body bloodied and ravaged by his own past he tried deny as he shakily stood in a another shuddering laugh.

     His fist, though shaking, was armed with a knife jutting out from his grasp defensively as though he were prepared to attack at any second. Like he were menacing and any threat any longer to one whose vision was blurred by crimson and blood lust snarling out between his teeth in that unforgiving laugh that left Mukuro twisting further into his domain.

     How _dare_ he attack him- how dare he break him down into some kind of monster like Belphegor were the worst thing that had ever happened when he was nothing but cruelty etched into yet another hideous face that Bel hated as his hand thrust back and slammed the door where Mukuro dodged the blow so swiftly by flinging himself back into the room behind him that Bel was too distant to harm.

     His arm unsteady as it fell back to his side at the solid slam of the door and more wild laughter he gave as he sunk back to the floor once more with bloody prints staining under his grasp growing impossibly weakened and vicious like claws shredding into everything he touched with growing wrath.

     He was unable to keep up this way. But there was no way to tell Fran that one part of him loved him, _and the other loved his blood and his screams_. His _pain_ , his _loss_ , _tragedy_ , and the _vengeance_ he could feel once he was torn apart.

     The knife Mukuro had once held lie before him now at the base of the steps its gleaming blade mere inches from Belphegor's legs as he lifted it to his grasp and forcefully pinned its tip into the railing he climbed in a daze when blood and agony washed away from his appearance, and into his seemingly normal guise fractured by hate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, long delay, but my only excuse is that I'm lazy as fuck with low motivation and working on dreams and long walks! Hope you at least enjoy the work I put into this pace-turning chapter!


	6. Insane

     Black was painted everywhere- in bountiful checkers spaced between the woozy floor traipsed underneath fur topped boots swung over the edge of upholstered leather damn near as perfect as the day it first entered the suave home fit for the king tapping black nails impatiently by the phone in its cradle so near to his ears.

     Through his bangs, he could make out the caller ID, but his brain couldn't place the location or title he read with a disruptive yawn he let out when his back crashed against the arm of the sofa, and his smooth laugh just flowed by like a dream he lived comfortably where he lie in such luxury under black fingertips edging along the surface of the end table done in lace drapes oozing over the surface like webbing caressing the elegant designs at its details.

     Cinnamon candies adorned their surface by the phone that never ceased to disgust him with its ringing while tuning it out for the television seemed like it were a dream he sought even more-so than the life he already had.

     And a shadow that crept over his back eyed the device as though he too found it a nuisance through squinted eyes worn with tiresome days and age in sagging shade and leathery skin that he blinked back just to give his prideful master a gentle nudge along his back padded by the stiff fabric of a dark button-up he shrugged close to his shoulders in a huff of breath.

     "Should I answer that?" Olgert asked as though he were hoping to simply bring an end to the caller who never left them a moment of peace since noon with constant calls he seemed to never give another glance.

     Not a business partner- not a friend, which he honestly lacked, nor a relative seeking him out for a surprise decree or event, and he watched the screen light up for the third time as he sat there, dwelling in his remaining thoughts and worries stewing under a placid annoyance twirled like his tongue around the candy he sucked on just as he pretended he couldn't hear the rings for the last time, and his hand shot out before Olgert could have stopped him.

     "S-Siel-"

     His voice overlapped the other. Sharpness agile when fitting into the position of the fallen king's voice seething at the mere sound of a phone he couldn't answer out of the shrill fear and screaming agony burning when he heard breathing and felt himself snap into a rage he couldn't always contain.

     "Who is this?" He would demand, his anger rising through flames he felt licking his skin and prickling the spine sturdy under skin ravaged by a laugh that came as only a hum. The satisfaction he heard in a single draw of breath enough to turn him into a savage he once was just because he hated this voice taunting him when it spoke his name fluidly from memory, and let their tone choke out.

     " _Rasiel,_ " the smooth voice rasped out, the flood of cloaked rage hidden within their tongue as it rolled out that hideous name easily before sighing. The dependence of their mockery something Rasiel vowed to attack the day he could wrap hands around the bare throat of an enemy so vile- so disgusting for crimes he couldn't speak without wanting to choke on his own saliva and words. "Why are you _afraid_?"

     "I remember your voice!" He shouted back like it was supposed to mean something. A threat of sorts that they snarled at- a mocking joke that they made him into with some humour in crude phone calls late at night when they ripped him from slumber monthly- surprise calls when he waited by the phone to hear them taunt him for the past he hated.

     The hint of recognition pressing his brain- searching for the face to the words he heard, but never recalling the name of such a beastly attacker who rustled on the other end, and breathed softly back.

     "I'm surprised, but I want you to remember something _else_."

     "I want to know who you are, and you'll tell me _now_."

     His head shook when Olgert reached to collect the device from his ear- his body yanking away when this was not something he was about to lose all over again. He was stronger than this- despising the whispers of the past that called back over his shoulder like claws trying to rip his mind apart in phone calls of harassment and breathy pleas.

     The dazzling room around him painted in whites and golds shining like plastic in a doll's house he felt his head spin for when his legs suddenly felt numb at the way the tone opposite of him shrank down into one stabbing him like knives so wickedly.

     Lamplight looked to be too bright to his eyes- acute halos tremendously appearing over the shades haunting a sudden darkness that overcame his home whether he wished it or not. The flickering doom approaching as he stared at the phone still playing their voice aloud when they spoke.

     "Admit your guilt." They jabbed him. The sharp tongue splintering him with the realization of guilt he refused to feel as Rasiel growled. "Tell them you did what you did."

     "You're a goddamn liar- You don't know-"

     " _Tell them_."

     They always said this- always begged for the truth he didn't feel under his skin. Nothing to flay back the layers tearing out from under his eyelids like he saw through rose-coloured glasses sealing his fate of lies.

     Deceit. Misery- an awakening of rot as he would become a corpse buried under his own dirt of filthy hell and memories ripping out his living soul that stirred just as they let their sigh reach him again.

     "Come back, Siel." They hummed through to him in the silence that he gave. The bittersweet sound of their voice making him twitch and clench the phone under his fingers while Olgert only stared in the fear that he would hear his master's true rage. It was only a matter of time.

     "You have to." They said, and yet they ended the torment with one, simple, click and were gone like the phantom they were as he let the device fall from his hands. His scream of aggression unheard when he tried to say he was no criminal- he was no liar.

     Rasiel was no scapegoat for the wicked who pinned him to death and torture as he let glass fracture upon the floor where cinnamon candy scattered along tiled floors, and Olgert was left staggering to clean it up at once.

     The shattered glass was part one, the scattered bills off the coffee table the next as white envelopes fell upon white tile less than gracefully on crisp edges he refused to lay a hand on. That address- that terrible place every envelope spoke of that he wanted to destroy- to remove from his mind as the words and numbers glared at him with dollar signs demanding he pay for the expenses of a home he did not live within.

     Not anymore.

     "Siel...are you sure?" Olgert asked, following his master's eyes to the floor where the papers all lie. The truths exposed in fragility that made him cringe just to see them uncovered for himself. "Could someone be living there?"

     "Well, it's not fucking me using the water." Rasiel muttered so bitterly as he flung himself back on the couch, and watched the phone clatter away from his reach. His hands flew to hide his face under the warmth of his own tough that could hardly fend off the building migraine surfacing to the front of his skull as it was.

     Olgert merely nodded sourly. "So I am not to call the company for fraud on this?"

     "Pay them." He retorted. "Pay them, and get me the auction papers."

     "Auction papers-"

     "I want that house gone."

     He could dare say that phrase under the smile he felt blurred out under folds that scolded him. The burning shame tracing his eyes and smile that resembled more than himself at the edge of a frame dashed out where no one could see what lie beneath the happy family he played a fool of.

     Himself- bangs of a bowl cut and golden locks spilling over a Cheshire grin shining so perfectly back under the arm of a tender mother and kind father, while what crept out from under thin lies was another smile. Another face, another tension hiding like a lurking shadow under the corner where Bel never left him.

     Belphegor was never out of sight or out of mind.

 

* * *

 

  
     Peering into its shallow darkness, Fran swore that it was still as ever. The closet hinged with creaks and eerie shadows that chased its closure as green hair swished around where Fran stood staring over the stair rails in thought.

     He better being playing fair this time, his mind mused, his hand following the white railing as he moved slowly over the heavy floors and gazed down over the living room that sat seemingly devoid of presence that stood out to the kid eyeing over the entranceway.

     Steps led to the bedroom at the end of the hall, the distant flow of light rolling along the beige wood that cascaded under the door Fran had never opened as he closed in on its surface that was enough to drive chills up his spine just to get close to his companion's bedroom.

     Mukuro's room that seemed to crack him like thunder the moment he stirred next to its white surface, hand reached out for the knob just as his surroundings felt harsh and dark with the chill creeping along his spine like intuition that shrouded him.

     Bel wasn't there. He wasn't hiding in the one place Mukuro wouldn't want Fran to search, which was a surprise since that asshole loved to make Fran's day hard and as difficult as possible when he was bored enough to do so.

     But it wasn't the shift in emotion that made him escape. Rather, a sound below that rattled him enough to cause him to abandon the reach for the doorknob and rush to the rail where he swore to the movement of a shadow belonging to more than just a curious sun beam moving away from the den that Fran fled toward on careful steps.

     Emptiness was what greeted him, of course. The watchful feeling he always felt still present as deep, turquoise eyes sought the hidden among bright rugs and dingy furniture passing him by with barren, stale, looks. The distinct lack of golden hair or piercing stripes missing from the drab scene that a slender form strode on by with confidence in the game they played.

     No time limit, no rules on where to hide as long as it was within the walls and visible. He made the visible part clear after Bel watched him explore the house for an hour without so much as thinking that he would be sitting in plain sight having gone ghost, and he never let him live it down since.

     Fran had all the time in the world to search for his strange friend, and it wasn't hard since Bel had no refined taste in hiding places.

     "Did you actually pick a decent place to hide, senpai?" He sounded dull. Voice echoing off grimy tile and walls reflected around him where the kitchen morphed under his feet on the first step.

     Bel did not respond, holding to his word that this was a serious game now while he probably sat snickering in his spot wondering if Fran was dumb enough to waste time searching even the tiniest spots to be sure Bel wasn't some flexible freak squeezing in under sofas and between the fridge shelves.

     He didn't even bother with the fridge this time; it was empty, and only reminded him that there was no food. The desperate touch of the counters avoiding his palm that he refused to graze on the filthy surface of any of the kitchen areas.

     They were once tidy, but Mukuro left them to dirt and muck that he couldn't clean while he left in such a hurry. Bowls left on the table piled in a heap with an empty milk carton drank from before scattering papers used as towels to the floor when Mukuro abandoned the mess.

     Maybe he wanted Fran to tidy up- take a new responsibility that would bring him into the adult world where things were sugarcoated. Where things were a wreck the way life had screwed them all over, and now Mukuro was just saying he'd given up and to fuck it all in one morning that left cereal crunching under Fran's shoes when he stepped forward to the pantry, and dodged plastic bags left where they were when Mukuro emptied them and cast them aside in despair as though he'd simply begun falling apart at his seams and limits.

     And the pantry showed no difference. It was the same scattered cereal and musty mess Fran remembered once being clean. Remembering when he once had a home stocked with food even if it was a little stale and he complained of its bitterness. Even if it was vegetables crammed on his plate that he didn't want to eat, and his grandmother...well, she didn't make him.

     But part of him seemed to ring up hollow when his heart wished she had.

     He shook that out of his head rather swiftly, turning his eye from the pantry suspiciously with the idea that he could catch Bel squatted someplace obvious, or catch a sound of breathing when he listened hard enough.

     He held in his own breath, thinking, pondering whether ghosts even felt the need to breathe, or if Bel was somewhere impossible to find and holding in as much air as he needed just to keep his friend walking miles around the house in search of someone who really didn't want to be found this round.

     However, there was one thing about the room Fran noted as different immediately. He was known for his tricks himself- the efforts put into pranks about as much as normal kids would put into homework and tests taken in schooling Fran never really had, but he was still damn smart for the lack of education never held over his head.

     In fact, it didn't take a genius like himself to notice the way withered wood popped out from the wall on the far wall. The basement draft pouring out from a stairwell ridden with a dour aroma that smelled of must and rot reaching his nostrils that flared with distaste from the home's age that was far from healthy at this point.

     Mold and mildew taking its toll with a sour stench that made him swallow on the thoughts of getting put into a toxin induced coma from the mess he was about to inhale playing hide and seek with a ghost who was too dead to realize what staring danger in the face was now that he'd already looked at death and ruined his own chances.

     Now it was Fran's turn to descend that path it seemed as he opened the door swiftly with little regret then. The pitch black glaring back at him as he let the touch of his hair shake against his shoulders when he formed a "tsk." on his lips and sighed deeply into the shaded room below just echoing his every step and vocality.

     Step one was over- it wasn't just that idiot holding the door shut on the other side just to yank it out of Fran's grasp when he pulled it open. It wasn't just an obvious prank, it was a terrible one that waited for him to reach the bottom of the steps just so he could jump out like a jack-in-the-box to terrify, well, attempt, to terrify him.

     He'd never been in the cellar before. It was one of the places he lacked interest in, and it wasn't because he was frightened of the dark or the patterns of swirling shapes he swore moved at the base of the steps he took through the patchy dusk under his gaze that faltered each time he attempted to blink the motions away.

     It wasn't the smell of the fear that wounded him over the basement of the place he now called home, it was the lack of interest. Just another room he didn't need to see or be hindered by with a past he knew left everything in store for him. The memories left behind by the tenants that abandoned this place so quickly, and that Bel wanted to forget wherever he sat down here.

     Boxes took shape at last halfway down, his hand gripping the rail particularly hard when he started to feel the chill of the outside within stone walls that closed him into the damp surroundings engulfing Fran with the desire to cough out the flood of dust and overwhelming copper that streaked his nose briefly when he froze at the edge of the step he nearly missed when he wasted too much time thinking about the dangers and less on the threats at his own feet. Or the game that was supposed to bide the time for his loneliness he had begun to reject at long last.

     "Oh, _wow_ , such a unique hiding place to pick, Bel." He taunted into the nothingness that spoke to him with whispers of a breeze hinted outside the stony wall before his eyes. And it was there that something new jutted out to his attention.

     A twisted formation gripping the same rail he held under the shadows that contorted its thicker back into a slender point like nails digging into the wood Fran hesitated to still hold as a chill fluttered up his spine whether his body showed a stiffening fear or not.

     If it were an arm, it were deformed and broken at the angle which nails pierced the surface- its hold sturdy as Fran felt the rail tremble when he pulled it tight, and his eyes squinted upon noticing the way it gleamed out like silver in a room where everything was so dull and aimless.

     He stopped when the shuffle at the back of the room startled him discretely. His eyes darted from the base of the steps to the boxes amounting up to a massive pile and stacked mercilessly in a graceless heap that seemed to topple yet while Fran tried not to think about what could have been stored within or how heavy they might have been to carry and leave behind.

     Fran's lips parted to call out again as though speech made him feel like someone were listening to him, and distracting him from the possibility that it were fright clutching him now. That being alone had finally torn him apart when it hurt most because he couldn't take having someone leave him all by himself again after he put all his faith in Mukuro who left him for a whole new day to play with ghostly figments of someone who could have been his imagination, but he refused the thought.

     "Oh no, you're going to jump out and _'try'_ to scare me again." Fran added, his eyes rolling when his walking pace reached the splintered wood of the end of the steps suddenly. A cold graze of something that made his hand jerk back causing Fran to question what was happening to him all of a sudden now that he was left to think too much and too hard.

     Merely the touch of metal made his head start to spin. The silver gleam twitching in his palm where the clean blade revealed itself in his hand where the black handle no longer resembled the deformed arm he once portrayed it to be. But it was a knife nonetheless, and stabbed into the wood of the stairs that he could only wonder about with fragile imagination before wishing he'd never come down here.

     If it were a prank, it was an awful one. One of Bel's cruel jokes that blew up in his face harshly as Fran gripped the blade and found himself twirling in his touch absently when he thought he'd seen it upstairs once or twice when going through drawers perhaps- or having seen Mukuro-

     Stripes crossed the corner of his eye as he let turquoise eyes meet with the slacking features of Bel who gestured impatiently to Fran with a look of disbelief.

     "Found you." Fran retorted before Bel could argue it, but he was already jabbing a finger into Fran's cheek rudely as he pointed with the other at the boxes jumbled apart where he must have sat for an hour in waiting. "Your hiding spots suck."

     "Why does it take you so long to find me!"

     "You should be more patient." Fran advised dully, his voice falling back to its usual tone as long as Bel were there to keep him in line and be his smart-mouthed self that left Fran feeling as though things were normal.

     And, quite frankly, everything to do with speaking to a ghost should have been far from normal.

     Bel took an intake of air, preparing the snappy retort that he could conjure before Fran got away with yet another one of his snide comments. "I shouldn't have to squat in one place for an hour because your lazy ass can't hurry up."

     "You picked the place." Fran mumbled. "Whose fault is that?"

     When he added in those words, his hand tapped the knife against his palm. Flicking the blade back in a dramatic tilt of his fingers that Bel observed in a shift from one foot to the next as he watched with a snickering smirk.

     "I still can't die twice, moron." Bel agitated, hearing Fran take in a breath. "But try it, and I can surely tell you that you will die."

     "Huh?" Fran placed a hand by his ear, masking the sound as though he had heard nothing Bel said when he started to make his way up the steps with a glance cast down to the railing again. The fractured surface still showing where the knife's tip had been forced through where Fran swept on by easily to brush the concept off his mind with ease, and with Belphegor on his heels laughing.

     "I swear, I will murder you." Bel grumbled while Fran shrugged.

     "You'd have to be smart to manage that, Bel."

     He sighed, the creak of every step leading him up as he called back down to his only friend. "My turn to hide," came his instructions. "And I don't cheat the way you do."

     "At least I'll bother finding you!"

     But Bel had stopped walking at the base of the steps then, his eyes gleaming behind the swing of his bangs that found the lights above mingled by navy blue and shadows spinning together behind the door that filtered in the sunlight above while he watched this little show play out for his own pleasure.

     The panic of motion blurring like water colours on a canvas he watched in a grin- a bold expression forming as the actor of his play made a theatrical sound of fear at the pull of the door, and he saw it all with a shallow smile. His features plagued with an evil he felt surging through him yet kept plastered down in a choked laugh that was mute.  
A silent mockery Mukuro only wished he could hear stalking him.

 

* * *

 

  
     Inevitably, this was distress. The coursing rush of anxiety that filled him with urgency the moment his hands pushed open the front door and entered like a startled deer just shaking on his legs that barely moved across the wooden floor speaking beneath him in Fran's voice.

     The panic strewn over his head and heart never lifting for a second to let Mukuro think clearly in this...this hell hole that teased him with the chance of a sanctuary when it fell apart all because of one door that slammed at the wrong time. All because of some loon laughing that he heard when he was too tired to comprehend the things truly nonexistent around him.

     What he needed was a break. Some rest- another goddamn drink to get this bullshit off his mind to be there for the kid going stir crazy in the walls that panicked Mukuro the moment he entered them and stared around like some stranger were about to appear over his shoulder.

     He moved silently in his own haven; his steps never making a sound when the kitchen tile touched the soles of his shoes and padded the trek he made from room to room left in a mess that Fran probably criticized that morning for his laziness. He just seemed like a wreck as of late, and he wondered how evident that was to a teen so near to adulthood?

     Mukuro never wanted to leave the porch, sitting there on the steps hoping no one saw him creeping around or trespassing while he sat there staring down at his legs and praying to the lord that he was bound to have something good in his life and not some kind of curse tearing his senses apart.

     He was a good person deep down- he did what was best, and he wasn't just another criminal seeking utter destruction.

     All he could do was shove the dirty dishes aside, pack them up into a bag and hide them away to make him feel like he had done something that wasn't flee and act like a coward just running away from what he'd built up.

     But that crying- that loony laugh that called him down into the pits of darkness roughly piercing the air under their feet with terrible sobbing and hysteria. The desperate plea for Mukuro to chase them into a whole new madness before sealing him out like the threat he might have seemed to be when armed with a blade he lost in the turmoil, but was too afraid to search for as his hands shook just taking a glance at the basement door cracked open enough to make him step back.

     No, that door had been closed. If not by Mukuro's panic then by the slam of the...oh god, he hoped the wind in the night in question that made him hold his breath. The glance of darkness peering out at him like dragon's eyes with amber sunlight shining below in places his eyes could not reach even when he clung to the wall and made his way closer in silence.

     Mukuro's breath was held. His steps light when he made his way over to the wooden frame almost alive with the sounds of chatter and movement that made him tense.

     Maybe it was just Fran; Fran was a practical joker that bested his best friend with cruel pranks since the day he ever stood by his side. But he learned how he hated them. How Mukuro was distressed over the dumbest things like this as he rudely gritted his teeth and thought about the lecture he would have to give if Fran's head popped around that corner or said a damn word about slamming that door-

     His mind jumped at the simple sound of footsteps on the other side of the barricade keeping him away. His hand grabbing the knob fearlessly all of a sudden as Mukuro forced the basement door the rest of the way open, and inhaled deep when a familiar face had moved back to avoid the shout attacking him in surge.

     "Damn it, Fran! It was you!" Mukuro gasped aloud, the boy he faced staring at him with a hand pressed to his chest when he too seemed startled.

     "Were you trying to give me a heart attack? Why would you do that?" Fran asked bleakly when he moved within the kitchen, looking over his shoulder before he slid the door closed behind him slowly, and let the strange object in his other hand slide carefully into view where Mukuro's body seized.

     Navy hair was grasped under stressed fingers, his eyes pressed under his palm as Mukuro sighed deep and felt like he were going crazy when his body leaned against the counter and watched Fran take in the situation awkwardly where he shuffled.

     "Are you okay?" Fran asked, but Mukuro was speaking just before him, an cutting him off immediately.

     "Where did you find that knife?" He interrogated, and Fran took a look at the chef's knife in his hand with a shrug.

     "I found it pinned to the stair rail." He replied, and the look Mukuro gave indicated that he was having a little trouble breathing. Like his heart had literally dropped in his chest. "Maybe learn to control your anger better?"

     There was no need to dignify that with a response, but Mukuro had deeper questions. "Were you in the basement last night- and answer honestly, or else."

     Fran's brow raised. "Why would I be hanging out in the basement at night? And why would you accuse me of doing it?"

     No, no one was on the other side of that door when it slammed. Nothing was there to make that tremendous slam that Mukuro dreaded as he stared down his friend with intense worry and yet all he got in retort was something he couldn't sense. He could never read Fran well, but this was different.

     He wasn't lying, but he wasn't concerned. He was just standing there like the side of the story he knew was calming. A story Mukuro hadn't heard that he felt was keeping Fran from bursting into worry over the questions and panic he saw trembling before his very eyes.

     And when he panicked, he laughed. The crazy thoughts making his own brain feel like he were losing it as Mukuro sipped bitter water without further pressure on the kid he just wanted to truth from, but felt nothing.

     Fran set aside the knife on the counter where Mukuro heard it impact. The slink of metal making him cringe as Fran set his hand on Mukuro's shoulder carefully with a sigh. There was nothing he knew of to do when he was this way, but he knew that it didn't help to gape and poke at him when his eyes were fixed to the table where he sat in a heavy thud.

     When Mukuro was like this, all he thought about was drinking and the past that haunted them. His head tipped down to the table while Fran slowly pressed his fingers into his friend's shoulder tenderly and breathed out a hum.

     "I'll be fine," Mukuro huffed. "Just go."

     He did as he was told then. Fran started off toward the living room remorselessly with steps barely dragging when he moved away, and heard only the voice of Mukuro wisping over the wooden surface in a slur as he gave a warning. "This better not be a prank, Fran."

     His head shook, shoulder slumped. "I swear..."

     "Why would anyone make someone believe their own house was haunted?"

 

* * *

 

  
     His arms were so slender dangling across the bed, fitted over Fran's hair that was splayed over the pillow shared disgustingly with a bratty adult grinning when Fran told him to buzz off just because he was too close or too chatty over the tv they watched together.

     But he didn't want Bel to leave either. He somehow liked the aesthetic he brought to the room as drab as the silence could be. The bittersweet alone time making Fran ponder if it was worth it to have Bel so close and his breath near to his cheek when long legs kicked at Fran's to remove the space between them as Fran rolled his eyes in displeasure.

     Whispers that took place in the dead of night so Mukuro couldn't hear them. Their voices down, but their topics taking all night when Fran started off with the one thing on his mind even when Bel was overlapping his words in defensive eye rolls and muttering.

     "Your friend just doesn't have a sense of humour." he remarked, head tilting where he stroked through his own, blond, hair in a laugh. The knots he came across pulled free so easily when he lie there humming to himself and admiring the mess he'd made of the idiot so caught up on reality he never even noticed Bel was so near and dear to his little friend practically nestled against Bel's side after he stopped trying to push him away.

     "Slam one door and he loses it." Bel laughed, his tongue teasingly swiping down over his lips that formed a smirk.

     "I'd stop messing with him if I were you," teal eyes met the invisible ones buried under layers of golden bangs. The ones that seemingly lavished him with their focus even though Fran never saw their true intent nor composure. "He'll just make us move again."

     " _Great_ ," Bel snorted. "I get my room back again."

     "You'd just be lonely with me gone." Fran mocked instead, his hand so close to his friend's side that he jabbed him by mistake when he spoke. His gestures so tense when he realized that part of him felt comfortable enough to let Bel lie there near to him. His eyes avoiding the frame of the body that lie on top of the sheets and stretched out around his own legs smoothly like he planned it all along to wind in closer to Fran.

     "Shut up." It sounded harsh, but Bel's voice strayed to playful. His hand shoving back on Fran's chest as he tilted his bangs back and leaned on his palm with interest. "Why bother living in this shitty place anyway? Why the hell would you come here?"

     It just sort of came out. A story he never had to tell that poured from Fran's lips like he had nothing better to do than spill his life to ghostly strangers tucked close to him in bed watching him like he were some new specimen to toy with.

     He started with his grandmother, a delusional, loving, old woman dedicated more to her plants and kind heart than the grandson kept away in a bedroom he seldom stayed. He stayed up all night, stayed out late, mouthing off hopelessly when part of him longed for the treatment bad kids were supposed to get when they acted like troublesome brats at the age of seven nearly drowning themselves in the river because they wanted to play, and screw everything else.

     He felt alone when she passed him outside soaked in blood and mud from every scrape and fall he took when she wasn't watching him because she never even knew who he was or supposed to be. maybe she forgot he lived there when she cleaned up the place, and threw away the things he loved now and again without so much as asking if he wanted that toy anymore.

     The toy he bought himself or that he found when she didn't recognize him as being the family she was expected to raise when his parents were...just gone.

     It was an old wound. One that Fran ripped open then to bare it all to Bel just listening with calm intent as he dragged his legs tighter within Fran's comfortably and turned over to rest his arm around Fran's scalp softly.

     "She doesn't sound terrible." Bel hummed quietly as though Mukuro could hear his own tone rising like mist through the halls shrouded in the drops of rain swirling off the pane casting silver light over the stairway. Hollow plops of water rang through the rooms left silent as Fran's eyes solidly lowered with remorse when he sighed. "It's not like she through your ass out."

     "No, I did."

     "You kicked yourself out?" Bel laughed with a grin spreading on that smug face even Fran was tempted to slap. "That's stupid."

     It sounded that way, but it was the truth, and a reasonable truth at that. It wasn't so much as he threw himself out as he left and never came home. Sneaking out over the wooden floors one night while staring back at her door like she could have heard him leaving, or that she would have cared that he was.

     The way his legs felt so numb creeping out for the exit laid out under a plan to finally free both their burdens. His own for feeling lonely and bored- forgotten by the last relative who was supposed to care for him, and his grandmother's so her food would stop disappearing, and her house would cease to appear with new trinkets and toys she never before laid eyes on but found somehow in her way day to day.

     Honestly, Fran thought about her a lot. He wondered if she ever realized the way her gardens grew like magic- grew like wildfires spreading in colourful vibrancy through a lawn kept like a secret nature in modesty. The cover of trees by a river Fran adored- the flow of floral sanctuary making the place perfect where he sat among grassy insects and animals that paid him no mind like he were merely a statue among the flowers he fed and watered blissfully to watch how his grandmother's face lit up as gold as honey just watching what she planted thrive.

     Maybe it all died when he was gone, or, maybe, she tended it well now that it withered and she prayed to god that it would live again. Maybe praying her dearest Fran would one day come home.

     "I ran away with Mukuro because he offered." Fran seemed to mumble now. "I don't know, I didn't see the point in many friends, so I guess he was all I had."

     "Terrible choice in friends if you ask me."

     "I didn't."

     "I can't believe someone as gutless as you even tried to run away." He spat out rudely when leaning on his arm until it seemed purple with the strain of his position that didn't bother him in the slightest. Like his skin and muscle went numb long after death. "Other than brave comments, you seem like a wuss."

     Under green hair, cheeks puffed out angrily with the huff of breath Fran took in response to being mocked by some guy who didn't even live long enough to say he was brave. Whatever he'd done had to have been stupid- bravery possibly having killed him the way curiosity killed the cat.

     But it was suitable enough to just jeer him back with a roll of his eyes and a pinch that made him draw back in a flinch over arguing and bickering over dumb comments he formed in his very simple mind.

     Then comes the rest of the tale Fran spun out like webs at the corner of the room eyed from the corner of dull irises hiding the emotion he lacked.

     Chrome Dokuro, Ken Joshima, Chikusa Kakimoto, M.M., and Mukuro Rokudo- they were all supposed to Fran's friends now. It was just too bad they were mostly jerks and morons woven between Mukuro's kindness like dolls just scrapping for food and luxury with small paychecks that Mukuro scrounged up as he could just to let certain drama queens get by on their hand bags and stylish clothes that Fran didn't need to survive.

     They were a group of squabbling tormentors that drug him along on a metaphorical leash because they couldn't do without the way he could, and they couldn't handle a little trespassing for the likes of the law and breaking it since it wasn't just petty theft and cramming their pockets with the food they ripped off from Fran nearly aching in the corner for the sweets Ken hogged down his nuisance throat and made Chikusa watch through four eyes that made Fran twitch.

     He got glasses for his appointments that they were forced to make year by year, while Chrome and Fran just stood off to the side meekly and watched them tear one another apart or just rely on their own, terrible, instincts.

     Ken got them thrown out. Noise complaints like he were some mad barking dog that drove locals and neighbours crazy with his arguing and agitating retorts that made them all bitter the day the eviction notice was there in black and white and printed to the door like a warning they all had in their guts.

     It was a dropping plunge of his heart that barely hung in his chest now since one day someone could throw him out of here too- something would make him travel and move again like this place was just yesterday's news and just another tragic part of Fran's hideous past.

     Bel yawned next. His expression weak as he spread his fingers down against the pillow close to Fran's ear and smirked. "This story isn't as fun as I'd thought it would be."

     "Oh? Then, spill something interesting about that dead life of yours."

     "You couldn't handle it." He added snobbishly. "Living the royal life only makes peasants jealous, right?"

     If he were jealous of white sheets crisp with the gagged up, wasted, chunks of dirt choked up through slender fingers pressed down over his lips til they were white. The sealing mask of air and dirt like hell cupping his lips forcing out the wriggling taste of mud and slick muscle of the things within his jaws making Bel vomit at the back of his throat where they rested- tickling his tongue no matter how hard Bel tried to cry out.

     " _Eat it_ -" A voice taunted him darkly in a snarl while their legs straddled him down, the hold of their limbs making him writhe and gag uselessly under the pinning snap of Rasiel's voice barking back at him through the same lips still red with anger and rawness where he chewed them apart until they bled out. "I hope you _choke_ on them!"

     His hands raked at the weak arms holding him down feebly- eyes rolling back under bangs when Bel felt the dirt fill his stomach and lungs where he breathed it in deep and refused to beg for the mercy of having worms crammed down his throat like a beast.

     He was too tough to cry, yet his eyes watered when the taste of something so vile tilted down his throat and he felt them squirm-

     Bel started to retch just speaking it grossly in the present where the contents of his stomach moved like worms were still living inside him for years since that day, and he watched Fran just blink like it barely made a dent in his senses.

     "Your brother force fed you worms? That's disgusting, but you probably deserved it."

     "Laxatives."

     "Laxatives? What is that? A threat?" Fran breathed out in bewilderment as Bel shook his head wisely with a grin.

     "No, it's why that ass shoved worms down my throat." He was proud to say it. Like the evils he spoke of were just a simple prank rolling of his tongue smooth as black coffee. "Drank every last drop, and felt so sick he didn't leave the bathroom all day."

     He paused. A few drops more, and Rasiel wouldn't have been there then- a few drops drank out of that bottle and he would have felt the kiss of freedom the way he felt the kiss of death.

     "The only difference is that I actually had friends." Belphegor snickered as his hand slipped cautiously along the sheets of cotton that fluttered around his touch feathering along the male's wrist that winced at the cool touch of skin smoothing along his. His deathly touch was calming despite the initial graze being so chilled and strange when it was so gentle and lacing fingers among Fran's own that resisted slightly before being clasped faintly in the way that Bel watched with sightless eyes taking in how his companion did not fight him for this affection.

     "I didn't waste time with my grandmother." He laughed as though ripping a knife through the tension.

     "What happened to them then?"

     Where had his smile gone now when his chest lurched. He didn't know that. He saw Mammon prowling like a hunting dog on the grounds when he passed by the windows and still saw them there on the front lawn where he sat among them on the steps- passing the hours until dawn with a few drinks and laughter because there was nothing better in the summer then friends and fire roasting some meat like they roasted each other.

     Typical friends that made him feel like hell was fun if the things he did were so bad- and he'd be condemned to that life if it meant he got to keep the crew at his side jeering and messing with him even when they cared so much.

     So he thought anyway. Now he could barely recall their voices and faces through the jumble of painful memories ruining his mind in the clench that wrapped Fran's fingers tight into his own grasp.

     "Sorry." Fran spoke as he felt Bel tense up, and his eyes were gentle when they met Bel's rugged swallow easily- emotionlessly as he couldn't stand this sensation anymore for as long as he, well, lived wasn't the right word.

     Under dirty blond hair, his expression cooled- eyes faintly blinking like they saw something new again for the first time in years that flew by his irises so fats that it was like his heart stopped for the second time and drove him closer- so close that his lips were ghosting the one he lavished in touch- his hips close with legs tangled between the smaller ones that let him cling to Fran warmly and without a struggle.

     "I think you're the closest friend I've had in a while."

     Fran's breath drew in, lips pacing themselves over his with a tasteful fluidity that attacked his lower lip slowly- the motion relaxed yet probing as Fran's eyes stayed open for a few seconds to see how close the other was when his head tilted gently. His arm wrapping the shoulders of the one he wanted closer- the one he wanted to kiss back with his tongue swiping carefully upon a soft mouth that didn't bother to even move when it was nibbled or kissed like this.

     It was impossible to escape if he wanted to, but Fran didn't even know what he wanted now as someone pressed their mouth to his and tipped his jaw in close with hot breath that passionately smoothed over his skin wincing when it took in the slow drag of Bel's fingertips that stroked by.

     Fran wasn't affectionate. Fran wasn't romantic, and he had never been kissed before in his life enough to know that this was bad or good when Bel didn't pull away even for a second to notice how his lips tried to firmly close shyly- or maybe in denial that his first, and true kiss, was with a guy. A dead guy really.

     Parting was tender. A bittersweet hum of the voice wisping by his ear the way hands dropped around his neck to make him face the one licking his lips with some pride in the kiss he gave.

     "You either haven't been kissed before," Bel teased. "Or you're just one _really bad_ kisser."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I start my new job tomorrow, so I had to get at least one more chapter out before I get busy again! ♥


	7. Dead of Winter

     Swiftly under the brush, Mammon was small enough to squeeze by brittle entrance in silence. Steps mute under the wind that swept by their legs gathered close by fabric of violet bunched up at their long cardigan's reach.

     It was eerie in the still, and worse yet in the loud, obnoxious, breath of nature that rustled every branch and plant in the vicinity as though there were others somehow aware of the hijinx taking place on the property where Mammon felt no need to rush through.

     Beneath smoky eyes lie a passage concealed under silver lighting unable to illuminate the sturdy bulk of the latched surface on which rust covered like a dull key. The only key that gave Mammon way into the home they sought night after night when they could find their way into the home's lawn undiscovered by those inhabiting its premises.

     Mukuro Rokudo had retired- seemingly. And if he hadn't- Mammon couldn't have cared less since they were deemed faster from the very start, and far wiser than the fool believing that locks and latches could be any match for someone so skilled.

     For someone who could undo this very lock and watch it collide under the boards and the rubble falling away from the basement door roughly as their eyes chased both ways before peering down into hazy darkness curiously without uttering a sigh nor breath of their entry to the guests.

     Vines followed their legs where they tossed their body around into the gap- torso barely falling into the pit before they were grasping at the handles behind them and pulling down where the doors fell shut, and their feet touched the floor gracefully as they had many times before.

     It was practiced. A rehearsed action that no other being could have performed on command without having police cars rolling down the street for breaking an entry, and Mammon found themselves smirking at the thought just when lowering their hood in the musky location swelling around them in the adjustment of lurking eyes.

     Now there were just boxes. There were dirty, musty, old forms of clothing and furniture abandoned because they became worthless when their master was gone. But it was still the same as it once was.

     An unused- disgusting hole flooded with despair and mockery that Mammon found smeared on the walls in former graffiti via pencil and any other material used to carve into thick walls so carelessly.

     Windows were barred because sneaking out was so simple back then- and Belphegor was a proud master at it whether Rasiel wanted it to be true or not!

     There used to be rugs to catch their less practiced tumbles and falls from the hefty doors above, but the bruises were what made it all worth the while. It was fun- cruel, vandalistic, fun, and mammon missed it all.

     They could still see him, the flashy clothes, the wild hair, the perfect grin in the descent of the stairs with the only black he wore being the cling of his pants edged by a silver belt swinging by chain on his slender side.

     He was partially deranged underneath that chaotic smile, but he was deeply pressed by stress and anxiety settling in on what would have been the playful perfection of an ideal best friend.

     Bel was just _troubled_ , but he was amazing in his own way. Brilliant, really, speaking out a plan of action under his breath or just in murmurs and gestures because in sleep Rasiel could hear them plotting and hating him behind closed doors.

     Now, Mammon still found themselves permanently quiet when they spoke. Their voice set on mute even when now the only one that could hear them was the one they always wanted to hear laugh wildly and thrash about freely when they had the house all to themselves or were fleeing in to the darkness together alone.

     Mammon seated themselves at the edge of the basement just staring about at the things around them that came as no surprise of flooding back memories they never wished to remove.

     If anything, they wanted to pry them all out into thought every day and night- recalling the way Bel was the one they told everything to- everything. The private life they had losing its meaning as he quite literally took their secrets to his grave of unknown even when he was never one to keep a promise the way he swore.

     Such a blabber-mouth, but a damned good one. He could stab you in the back, but he was so honest about it that mammon never blinked an eye.

     That's why Bel was their best friend; he was dangerous. He was the evil behind stunning eyes and face, the destination of all hatred and affection all at one time even when all that the others seemed to see was the poster child of riches and beloved parents. Well, the reality was, he was never truly evil to them.

     He was just different, and that was enough to earn him the separate label from his terrible twin.

     The others saw the old, ravaged, books bent at the spines- the black candles and the symbols etched into bare skin because he was as shameless as h was darkened on the core to most. But they lacked the understanding of what it was like to feel the fear he did inside.

     Above Mammon then, there were steps pacing. The restless legs of Mukuro Rokudo making them inch away from their wall carefully just enough to follow him from below. Of course, there was no chance of being caught.

     They knew every creak and sound in that house more than anyone, and that made very awkward step worth the effort when they could lean closer toward the door obscuring the guests living between them and his best friend on the upper floor they assumed Bel was within.

     Mukuro didn't know anything about the home he lived within like they did. Like how the dried blood on just the right corner still shined like rust against the concrete, aged, floor in an ugly fashion.

     It formed streaks where hands and a torso fell from every drag and yank managed even on such a petite form such as Bel's. For someone so small, his blood was still flowing like rivers, and his weight still massive when dead and dragging behind mercilessly through tremendous ache and shock that Mammon remembered viciously in a faint grin falling away like the caked on gunk they kicked away with the toe of their boot.

     It wasn't like they ever hid the evidence- it was simply ignored. Begging to be witnessed by the eyes of innocents who would soon see the reality of the situation still pleading to be discovered for its vicious crimes.

     Thinking about it made it feel worse. Each and every time far more painful than the last because it just seemed like there were so many ways they could have handled it. That maybe they could have arrived sooner to stop the whole thing, or treated the wounds clinging with crimson under striped fabric.

     Stab wounds looked so grotesque under clothing. Sticky blood seeping out through provoked holes torn through tissue and flesh poking out where Mammon was nothing close to shy of touching.

     Pounding on his chest, his stomach on occasion since their aim was messy- sloppy handiwork made of the attempts to save the life they tried to slam back into the shell of bloodied pulp and breathless organs just fading out through every wasted second they spent pressing their mouth to his.

     Many think about what it was like to kiss their best friend- but Mammon would be willing to bet anything that it wasn't like that. Not with cold, breathless lips unwilling to part when they felt so much like hard rubber. Their breath could flow down an open throat, but that didn't mean his lungs were taking any of it.

     His chest had ceased to rise. His heart had ceased to beat. And his skin had ceased to glow the way his smile ceased to appear when he lie there in the bathroom just bleeding into murky water making his body and clothes feel so soggy and gross where Mammon touched.

     And they felt anger rise with the miserable recollections following them every time of the darkness circled in black candles everyone always hated. The books they said were garbage and lies that fueled the fire of despising those who found them interesting the way Bel did- the way he believed they were one of few things like him.

     Chanting that replaced banter and chatter because the dead don't talk- and Mammon was lonely on hour one, and enraged on hour two with palms pressed to a dead heart and speaking through clenched teeth every word read off a page that fell into pauses.

     It was all one, enormous blur they wished to forget, but it just didn't work like that. Nothing just went away because they begged it to, and they merely found themselves pondering why all those efforts went to waste when they held such faith in its practice.

     Despite it all, Mammon remembered everything from that night. _The gore, the rituals, the denial, but...._

      _They never remembered feeling scared._

     Soon after this realization, Mukuro was hard venturing again up the stairs to his bedroom where he belonged over an hour ago. His steps seemed to fade into a distance as Mammon's eyes fixed upon the entrance to the home itself above them where it remained closed for this once without ever revealing that wonderful grin.

     Because even when it used to hold loneliness and sorrow it was nothing short of a breath of fresh air that gave Mammon reason to hold hopes that their best friend still lived somehow.

     Even if he was a little busy with a new... _friend._

 

* * *

 

  
     In the blustery mix of it all, things were still. A defused situation gone cold like the trail that was no longer pursued- all the accidents pushed aside on a whole other dream that Mukuro let go once things just felt...natural.

     Not that they should have with everything that was surrounding them. The dead, the chilling, paranormal, fact of death that blindsided Fran and all he once believed in like a truck nailing him in the gut with hardened facts.

     An oddity- a truth that was as strange and abnormal as it was oddly comforting at the end of its unraveled tale. Belphegor was dead. Fran knew that the way he knew how to count to ten, but he was still somehow there in the world of the living like myths would claim. An afterlife that let Fran's nerves be less on edge when he thought about how he felt about dying and losing everything he had at the end of this wasted life.

     Because even when he felt his fingers going numb right then from the cold around him- from the settling winter that enveloped his skin, Fran could still witness what appeared so real through the white afternoon.

     Pale skin bared to the elements because there was nothing that could harm him now- Belphegor was as alive as Fran himself. As everyone who stood among them with a grin plastered on lips that taunted, breathed, and...kissed the so normally, whether Fran appreciated that or not.

     Nonetheless, it was absurd the way things never felt more worth living until something dead had crawled in.

     Bel brushed by the heap of snow where Fran sat cross-legged in his path. The mound of pressed and thick snow gave him such a limited view yet all around them lie the prints of their existence with such vivid evidence that Fran found it hard enough to believe that no one suspected the trespassers yet.

     Mukuro left his own trail down the sidewalk where he'd ventured out, and Fran left his mark wherever he'd strode about by the porch and the back of the house piled up with wintry strikes.

     His scrounged up, thrifted, gloves weren't perfect for sifting through the powdery white, but they worked better than staying cooped up inside day after day while the chill cooled down the fear lurking under Mukuro's calm appearance Fran had seen for the weeks gone by since everything just fell into silence.

     It felt like forever since doors were slamming, scares were detailed, and Mukuro spent nights with his door locked just clinging to open lids since the sounds of another being aside from the teen down the hall had plagued him. The same being currently allowing flakes of snow to drift upon his seemingly solid face unfazed by the cold.

     It made Fran scoff a bit when he watched. His legs shifted on the mound, and his eyes fixed a little harder on the one traipsing about in nothing but long sleeves, laced boots, and the same pants he wore for days when he wasn't sporting night sweats and the same old striped wardrobe.

     Stripes that painted out a simple nightmare unseen through a calm guise of ghostly self that only those who couldn't gaze on him felt when he crept by. The fear of having Belphegor on their radar without ever seeing that unpleasant smirk and hearing that garbled choke of a laugh he squeezed out when a hand pressed flat into the icy breath of the clouds and grasped it under softened fingers clenching tight around a ball of white.

     He could laugh it off when he was supposed to be freezing in the bitter chill. Bel could adorn himself in a snow angel's hold, roll about in the play of ice and snow, but it would never chip away the already pale flesh that stuck out like broad daylight to Fran who scoffed and flipped his head away.

     "Jealous?" Bel retorted in a snobby sort of tone. His fingers flecked the snowy bits over Fran's shoulder rather rudely as his friend shrugged them off in a scowl.

     "You should freeze to death."

     Bel smiled broadly. "Thanks; you too."

     "You look ridiculous like that." Fran had to add, but Bel seemed unaffected by the sassy remarks nowadays as his slender legs spun around on the matted grass he discovered underneath the soles of his worn boots.

     His ripped jeans didn't show signs of and trembling under thin fabric like Fran would imagine. And he didn't so much as flinch when he let his arms caress snow like it were habit to stand within the touch of freezer-worthy temperatures.

     "You're making me feel like I'm freezing." Fran grumbled to himself as his arms folded tight over a hand-me-down jacket.

     "Death does that to people."

     Teal eyes scanned further up from their seat upon the cold earth. Their reach halted just short of the one mocking him just above, but his lips didn't wish to halt at all. They didn't choose to hold back a single comment to be made as his brain functioned like clockwork ticking forward to the realities that he felt scalding him like licking flames.

     Fiery remarks that warmed the body winter dared numb, but Fran wouldn't be so weak after so much had passed him by.

     There were times when Bel felt his coldest. Not when he spoke crude phrases and lashed out in his aggression- not when he cheated and gloated over the smallest things like a bratty child just playing stupid games, not even when he was a beast and so seemingly cruel behind a terrible smile and hidden face that taunted Fran through thick and thin.

     His skin was cool when his body was backed up into Fran's. Those long arms drifted around a frail body that hugged him hard for such a tiny grasp that Fran barely felt through his slumber fading at merely dawn when a soft glow could illuminate white skin curled over peach.

     Petite fingers latched around a waist that Fran stirred out of reach because there were so many things clashing in the back of his mind.

_One_ , he couldn't have known what to think with anyone curled up next to him like that. Let alone the one who haunted him.

     And, _two_ , there was something Fran found about himself that made whatever had happened seem...different. Some would seek comfort in cuddling another- sharing a bed making them both feel so close and just...well, whatever it was- Fran only felt distant.

     He felt as though escaping those covers was an option, and he managed it without word until he could have ever figured out that Bel was too attached to the act to ever give up. Now, it was something Fran was used to night after night with a certain obedience and routine.

     "You're already cold inside and out," Fran quipped as his body started to stand up from the icy throne. His butt was dusted off when his palms were slowly leaving the ground, and his legs shook a bit just getting used to the concept of moving again. "Your legs are like ice when you try to cuddle me-"

     Bel's boot dug deep under the white just in time to launch a wave into Fran's face. His mouth took it in roughly- spitting consistently as Bel snorted with disgust and began to stride off with annoyance at the mere words he had just heard.

     "Don't insist I would ever cuddle up to something like you!"

     Sleeves wiped away the powdery mess just as soon as Fran could open up his mouth for another retort. "How could I _not_ notice?"

     He was reaching toward the hand rail of the porch awkwardly leaning from the weight of the mess of wonder making it bow just into Fran's grasp as his fist crumbled together a sloppy ball of snow.

     "I'm not as dumb as _you_." His fingers curved it toward his chest roughly, his face never once sparking a smile like his enemy who never ceased to tease him with that cocky look of his. That was just his face.

     Just like how Fran's face was a permanent frown- almost a sour, dull expression that made just about everyone want to provoke him with a thousand questions. If he had a nickel for every time someone asked him what was wrong, he wouldn't be stuck in this situation- poor, living with a ghost, slinging a snowball straight ahead into said ghost's side as it nailed him perfectly in the hem of his shirt miraculously.

     It was curious, really. Bel recoiled slightly with a click of his tongue, but he was swift on his feet and already hurling himself forward for the rail of the porch like he were about to leap it and physically pound the brat fleeing for the side of the house rapidly in a subtle "Uh-oh."

     He was joking. He was careless to be honest- running free and not nearly as fast he could have been as his hand dared scoop up the excess drift along the siding as Bel blocked off the exists and snarled him down.

     He thought the balls of snow would seep right through him where they landed. That the clusters of sticky white would just fire between his chest and arms like he were true nothingness- because he was sure that those around him would see just that. Just a strange kid talking to himself in the midst of nowhere like a moron while he tossed snowballs through the air.

_But the snow stuck like glue._

     It clung to him through each messy clutch and sling of powdery mess- sending it soaring between them into open air before the clumps were ever even solid lumps to do any damage to the boy darting out from his reach. Fran was smaller, but he had a decent athletic style when he desired it.

     His legs were shorter, but they could tumble over railings and brush easily just as Bel stumbled behind grumbling like an old man unable to keep up with pesky kids crossing his lawn just like Fran who went rolling into the chilly sea of pearl when Bel finally caught up- only to fly by in an attempt to grab at the teen's jacket.

     Of course he missed. And, of course, they could both laugh or make acute, angry, noises when Bel fell short into the yard just a few feet away with daggers stared in his eyes while he was painted up in snowy mixture, and Fran just snorted with laughter.

 

* * *

 

  
      _Where was Mukuro?_ Dusk was settled and gone by then. The hour gone stale with utter darkness within the house that never quite aged well with the night. It simply grew darker, more eerie with the haunting creaks and whistling siding near to collapsing from the walls of the home itself.

     Falling apart. Like Fran's nerves on the inside as he cast gentle stares out the window tilting with his head that drifted against the back of the musty sofa where his legs stretched out uncomfortably next to Bel.

     He tried extending them over the guy's lap- no go. It was refused as he rudely tossed them off with a roll of his bitter eyes that Fran hadn't seen, but expected. Just a standard dick move that Fran teased by shoving Bel aside on the couch as payback, and, before long, they were at it again with the blended attitudes making every little game impossible.

     Making every movie and show they watched a bicker-fest of nonsense and arguments that made less plot better and more eye gouging necessary since the pair weren't going to agree on anything less than violence from the first moment they had rushed into the house exclaiming to thin air that they had called the television.

     "The movie would be better if you talked less." Fran egged him on. That dull-faced expression just made it worse. Bel wanted nothing more than to wipe it right off that _smug, bratty, little-_

     "Anything would be better without you in it!"

     "You just couldn't think of a better comeback."

     Bel's fist tightened around the remote, possibly mimicking the idea that it was Fran's neck he held like that as he threw it down suddenly and swung his legs over Fran's roughly like he owned the couch. A disregard to personal space as Fran called it.

     " _Prince privilege_."

     But it stopped there. A drafty den causing them to both fall silent to the screams of the blurred television blending into the shadows of a lightless room growing colder with the season- perhaps even the mood.

     It was hollow there. A distinct emotion of death falling over Fran like a pale, fatal, expression on his heart and face that Bel glanced at when the film was far more than hinting at the gore etched into their eyelids reflecting viscera and torn layers of tissue flooding with the taste of copper filling Fran's mouth without so much as having a single scratch on his body.

     The most he'd felt were bruises and bandaids plastered over skinned knees off concrete he dragged himself up on with former family doting on him like another child- a baby that needed caring for. It seemed weak now after all the bumps and falls he took only to have the later Mukuro Rokudo looking down on him with a hand outstretched with worry, but a voice firmer than metal that said " _You'll be fine._ "

     He was fine. He always was, but something Fran read off Bel's expression didn't fel quite the same when he saw it out of the corner of his eyes. A certain passion for the death and the crimson tides leaking from bodies plunging into heavier depths of cannibalistic desires Bel didn't blink at.

     Slender fingers clenched at stabbings- knives _plunging deep_ within soft, ripped open bellies that his teeth gritted at like his heart were growing swollen in his tight chest just because some part of him could no longer stand to observe what those fictional bastards got.

     "Funny." Fran murmured. "I pictured you to be someone who loved these slasher movies."

     For some reason Bel had to pause. Like he were frozen in a sort of dream flashing around him in neon colours and bars of static that obscured his fragile mind hinging on deprived. He didn't breathe. _He didn't have to breathe._

     But it made him feel like he was turning blue. Like he was choking on his own spit with the grave pains striking his heart from pierced chests where hands clasped with agony- flat, lifeless, eyes staring back at the screen where someone loving- someone who cared bent over the body to close the eyes gazing into the dark because he felt that same cold.

     He felt the same, dark tunnel of the end closing in on him when there was no light the way the media swore to him through years.

     Bones in his neck cracked when he tilted it to the side jarringly to startle Fran suddenly after the immense silence that had doured the mood severely. Those eyes beneath wavy bangs opened again to the shallow shade they faced before greeting Fran where he looked for some form of comfort in mocking- some way to abuse the kid just to bring the colour back to his cheeks.

     "I used to," Was what he got out instead.

     And it had some kind of initial shock value for sure- just not what Fran had expected in the least when his body started to lean forward from the back of the sofa rather curiously. The jacket around his arms felt tighter when he pulled at the fabric wound around his elbow just to distract him from how emotionless the atmosphere had become.

_Or maybe the opposite. A darker switch had been flipped as Bel chewed his lip- picturing the table full of toppled cans and droplets of cola. A loud television that drowned out the belting shouts and darting eyes that were concealed under dark hoods and jackets he remembered fondly from the corners of his eyes where he swore he could still see them all gathered around him. His friends._

     "But I lived that genre once," Belphegor spoke gently when his face turned toward Fran again as he clawed upward into a sitting position. " _And it still haunts me like I haunt you._ "

     Nails dug softly into Fran's lap where outlined stripes were all Fran could see without looking up into the eyes that hung over him then. He couldn't force himself to look- paralyzed. A stiff back suddenly making it hard to so much as part from the couch where Belphegor made it all apparent just for him for the seconds going by.

     If the brat had just tried to inch that god damn passive look up for just one moment of that intimate display then he would have seen the glistening blue. The truth of beauty when it was seen teeming with dead anxiety- whitened by death when his pupils had slowly drained from their original colour after so long.

     But if it was fear, then Bel didn't have to care. He wanted someone to fear him the way victims feared their slashers, the way mortals feared the grim reaper that would slay them by their supple throats that Bel dragged his fingers across gently before lowering his lips down upon his victim's that trembled this one time in response to something so dire and desperate that teeth bit down.

     Fran didn't know how to kiss. Did people bite when their mouths tangled together in a sloppy mess? Or was it just another murderous habit that Bel displayed even when his fingers were slipping over warm fabric to even warmer flesh causing him to breathe out a soft moan into the lips greeting him back with something the ghostly male could smile about.

     The heat of the movement he felt returned to his actions and passion giving Bel all the more reason to dominate the male who never before showed him any affection. Because maybe Fran cared about him enough to give him more of what he wanted. A desperate cry for attention that beat Bel into submission the way he tried with Fran like the monster he truly could be under all that playful rudeness.

     Not right then, but _other times_.

     His nails touched under Fran's jaw carefully, toying with locks of mint green hair while saliva oozed between them and made him laugh because his partner was as clumsy a kisser as he was at everything else, but he wasn't about to complain when he was parting those lips needily. When he was crawling over that lap hungrily without thinking for a second about the world around them.

     Not until the front door was opening and calling out a jarring name that Bel only wished was his own voice in a far more groaning way.

     "Fran!" Mukuro called within the house just t be sure his precious prodigy hadn't left the premises. To see that the teen was behaving himself while he lie on the couch on his back in silence where his hair seemed mussed and disheveled like the rest of his body that Bel had only moments ago claimed.

     But was long gone now.

     "Fran, I'm home now."

_And just last year, Fran could have said that was all he had ever wanted to hear._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, some actual progress! ♥ Thank fucking kittens that I actually got something posted at long last! ♥


	8. Unwanted

     As it turned out, there were many things Fran learned that he no longer wished to hear. The frozen earth cracked, creaked, slipped, groaned- but it wasn't like the snowy touch spoke back to him as he crossed layers of clumped ice kicking out from beneath thin boots beneath soaked sweats where he would plop back onto the porch and watch the empty street.

     Snow slung out like dust from his fingertips when he moved against the railings. His mere breath fashioning an effective nudge to blow away inches of the fluffy texture against the sidewalk where he avoided stepping again. His toes were frozen enough, he thought, but his gloves had yet to feel the same drench as the rest of him so he remained.

     Fran wasn't sure why, but the cold was a good thing. A feeling that prickled him like tiny bristles pinching every last section of skin exposed to the bared teeth of winter shedding him of his common sense. Or so Mukuro claimed as he took occasional glances through foggy glass just to be sure Fran still sat by the stoop, watching nothingness.  
But he was always strange like that even back home. Those watch dog's eyes pointing into the void. Gazing into an open field of white and ivy stretching boundlessly over the barren yard grown so deeply into the woods that the lot had become one and the same as nature.

     But the one thing that Fran did notice was the tension he felt boiling him over. Whether it be the carry of voices pushing over the trees, or the trench forming in his gut when teal eyes took in the visions of the bedroom window hovering him.

     Though it wasn't the room itself, but the body leaned against it that only he seemed to notice. The lanky arms hugging the slender knees close as bangs hid the wide expression of vague amusement in just observing the boredom Fran expressed out there by himself.

     Stripes and a dastardly grin reflected behind grimy glass as Bel merely observed, keeping his distance after the night before when they had little distance to speak of. The pressure on Fran's lips merely a memory he pushed away as a whisper carried between the brisk dashes of snow flowing against his coat.

     It was hard to focus on the sounds of approaching footsteps and clamouring excitement heading his way when Bel moved away from the opening to the room slowly. Bangs hid his desires, his intentions, escaping the youth without a word as he disappeared into the darkness of the blinds where Fran saw nothing more of him from his stance.

     "Great, this one is a dump too," someone duly spoke over the drifts by the tail of the driveway. The peek of white and softness revealing itself from behind the glaze of glistening caps that seemed ominous after dark where Fran was faced with that bland pair of bespectacled eyes only waiting for some sort of response from the younger of them.

     Chikusa Kakimoto stared blankly at Fran, his height making them certainly feel as though Fran hadn't aged a day since they'd last spoken. Because, to him, he would never see the things Fran had seen on those childishly sweet eyes.

     Not the slasher films next to the one whose skin was colder than the ice of the stainless mailbox he touched as he moved closer to the youth carefully in a sigh.

     Not the doors slamming without so much as graze as they leaped back in fear and unsettling wishes to run away.

     Chikusa stood aside as Ken Joshima moved between them now instead, that particular laugh filling the whole street when they locked eyes, and a hand planted itself flat onto Fran's shoulder boldly because it wasn't like they were entire strangers, to say the least.

    It was just that they weren't the closest friends since the day Fran remembered all the shouting, the screaming in his ears, being jostled awake by the rough hands now touching his coat before jerking away and catching his gaze back to the hollow bedroom standing as empty as ever.

    "I forgot Mukuro took the kid with him too-"

     "So you thought I was just left out on the street?" Fran asked boredly, kicking at the ice below them as he took a few steps back toward the porch they approached cautiously. "Just remember, Mukuro chose to keep me first."

     "Because he has to!" Ken interjected, but Fran's eyes rolled. That look of embedded fury worth all the trouble this guy would be able to cause in the coming days- all the perfect silences he would ruin just to give him that extra-throbbing headache from hell.

     "Why don't you go ask him," Fran gestured back to the door. It seemed so far away right then as they all trudged past him, like the steps swirled away faster than they could climb, or that the wind forced them back two steps to their one as the knob slipped away.

     But it had to be Fran's darkening imagination that tugged him back from following them so swiftly. His lagging form expecting it when Chikusa no longer held open the wooden frame for him as it started to close in his face, but he grasped it in time, chasing his former friends into the foyer as the wind whistled behind him somewhat loudly in the crease of the door beginning to shut.

     The vision of the face between the crack sinking in just as wisps of blond and a deep, furrowed, expression appeared when the door shut him out. He watched him step inside, the glass showing no one at the door but the open yard and the ghostly scene of blustery breezes passing them by.

 

* * *

 

  
     "You better like cold water," Chikusa heard Fran by the doorway, his bleak eyes meeting teal as the shadow of the shorter boy seemed to linger by the open doorway of the bathroom.

     It was as though he came out of the fog where he waited. The silence impossible to sense how long he'd been waiting to speak to him, but Chikusa had a feeling, or rather, hoped he hadn't been watching too long.

     "Mukuro says it works," He responded at last, but received only a stare. As usual of him.

     Fran's face seemed strangely darker than before. The glee sucked dry. The wishful thinking was torn out of the husk left behind as his head tilted to one side where he leaned to the frame silently.

     He was quieter now, less of himself than he had ever been. He used to be loud in his own way- obnoxious on end with every sarcastic remark he gave just because he was Mukuro's prodigy. The one they fought for attention against because he had it all- cuteness, childhood, a chance to become something they never would-

     "The water works, but it's freezing," Fran answered after so long. "The fridge works too, but kinda in the opposite way."

     It was dangerous, but his mouth wanted to move on its own. Craving to ask the question that had been clinging to Mukuro's curious tongue for so long, but feared it would drive the kid off.

     He was estranged now, the absurd behaviours worrying the best of them- Fran being like his son in a way! Or a brother. Someone he adored and cared for so much that it hurt to hear him speaking to the shadows all alone. Cooped up in locked doors in the utter void with his body falling prey to hunger and sorrows only others could see.

     Loneliness may have struck him finally. The eerie sensation of his frozen touch making Chikusa want to gasp as he brushed by Fran's arm gently to exit the cramped room.

     Mukuro called him _different_. The label becoming far more than apparent as he stared over his shoulder at the boy who made his way out into the hallway with a sigh, his steps soft on the rug trailing all the way to the bedrooms on opposite ends of the massive home withered of its beauty.

     What Mukuro called home- they called frostbitten. The rotted flesh of the exterior turned to molded white and rustic brown as it faded away. The decayed scent of wood and loss filling the trembling air of every room as the floor creaked and warped under each step that only Fran could ignore when moving fluidly about the house.

     "Fran-"

     Mint green turned toward him, the strands loosely tracing the growing features that used to be so kind and young. They grew up so fast. The hardened look almost impossible to stand as Chikusa pondered almost ignoring what he'd said in the first place.

     But his stubbornness was just as strong when he grasped the stair rail and held to his intentions. "Is there anything wrong with you?"

     Maybe his movements seemed somewhat stiff, but that wasn't exactly the problem Chikusa saw. He saw a young boy whose life had been drained from his soul. The slack expression so cold as it felt like there were pairs of eyes all stabbing into his chest just from asking a single question.

     Yet there was some truth to the scene- truth only Fran's eyes could see as a pair of long arms had eased around his tense shoulders calmly. The strength almost playfully squishing him while he tried to remain fixed on what his friend had said.

     Bel was in one ear, his laughter musing by in a whisper as he mocked Chikusa from behind Fran's back, his soft touch smoothing along his jacket until reaching a fold of both his wrists around Fran's neck.

     "I wonder if seeing me just one time would kill him," Bel taunted bravely in his ear. "Not like I'd care."

     "Mukuro says you seem distant."

     "He isn't sleeping well anymore," Fran insisted, his position shifting awkwardly under Bel's invisible hold. His shoulders bent downward, neck trying to crane better to see the worried face that was bestowed on him.

     Chikusa felt like he was beginning to pry, but dared to lift away a few more layers when he asked: "Are you?"

Fran didn't know how to answer that one. Truth be told, he rarely slept through the night. But not out of fright of what lurked above his covers.

     That expressive smile showing its true colours when the lights were out and his shadow crossed the sheets Fran lie beneath taking shallow breaths- lucid dreams taking hold as he felt no control over the body that he felt merging to the bed weakly. Lying within the reach of the one who haunted him.

     Held him like a lover, his eyes closed, lips pressed to bare skin that peeked out from under the wind of blankets Fran tugged down upon Bel's request just to let him in like he was real. As though his body breathed and needed the sense of reality to feel alive again.

     Movies after dusk, kissing by the time the curtains were drawn away, the sight of dust floating around them as they disturbed it making Fran's heart wonder if this was worth the trouble.

     He didn't sleep much, but he found that he didn't need it with the sweet caress of eyes he'd never before seen taking him all in. The flicker of blue appearing so strongly at first, their striking enthrallment somehow brilliant like sapphires as Fran stirred in his covers and only blinked back into them as Bel smirked.

     " _You weren't supposed to see them_ ," Bel had said, but he could never unsee them now.

     "I would rather you worry about Mukuro," Fran dodged the question with ease, rubbing at his eyes as an act with Bel's smug grin flowing down his neck. It made his friend nervous in a way, his shoulder shrugging back to make the odd sensation of his lips grazing such sensitive flesh end as Fran stood a little taller toward Chikusa. "He's living on sleeping pills and anxiety medication."

_Something Chikusa had already known._

 

* * *

 

  
     He was thankful that the pipes didn't scream when the faucet dripped through the night. Or that the dust wasn't the specks of insects creeping from sil to sil causing them all to shiver and dig into the flesh Ken tried not to tear into at the thoughts plaguing him again.

     Mattresses on the bare floor- his back wound so tight he could barely walk on brittle, malnourished bones. His skin crawled, throat so dry that talking felt like fire when he choked in his sleepless state just staring into the swirling ceiling.

     The boiling heat or the bitter cold- his body never sure whether it lived or died as it tore itself out of every lasting coma he decided a few times that he wished he just wouldn't wake up. The idea of death kissing away his last breath something to pray for as he lie on his back tossing out the hopes of anything good.

     It was always a new home. Always a new door to open as Mukuro forced him to live again and again. The sound home something to look forward to as they all suffered in their own ways here.

     He just wanted good food and his back to not feel like he'd been stoned to death night after night- just plow the stones into his brain and end it, he thought, forcing his face into the pillow gone flat with usage.

     His body shivered at the cold, the creaking stairs disturbing him, the wicked growls of the wind and blustery winter making Ken's face cringe with fear and regret that sunk in carefully at the final step. The one that reached the bottom floor as his head shot up from the couch and took in the living room around him.

     Dark. Bland. The place still in one piece where his gaze tried to focus. But it all revealed nothing, his vivid imagination ripping out his senses because he'd finally hit the bottom of his will. The sensation of another place ruining his mental stability yet again as he fisted into the cushions on every sound he heard against the shutters and siding.

     And even if he slept, it was like his brain flashed with a certain violence. The crushing weight of screams and death hitting him like a truck when he closed his eyes and listened to what ailed him for real. The truth of his disturbed thoughts and peculiar sounds all coming out to be a tale he wished wasn't engraved on the back of his eyelids observing a scene of pinned wrists and wailing breaths just begging to be freed from that fatal blow.

     One after another, the trickle of blood pulsing out of the chest punctured viciously over and over after every shout that grew to be soundless through the agony they must have felt. The wash of relief as death finally caved in for them- the misery of wide eyes and how it must have felt to grab at your own, gaping, wounds.

     Hair matted with blood, the body slumped to the floor where it was simply discarded because someone wanted it there. Throwing them away harshly until the knife seemed to slip away from their reach and plunge one last time into their body, the drip of crimson from the corner of their lips evidence of the trauma- the cruelty-

     Ken gagged, his body feeling as though he were convulsing into the firm sofa without reason. His eyes widening as he felt the pulsing heat at the back of his throat so suddenly where he tried with all his might to struggle against it.

      His legs scrambled under the blankets. His tongue fought the ooze of red slipping out of him, his chest heaving dryly as the room flooded with enclosing darkness as though he were slipping away.

     Shit, he was choking it all out. He was gagging on his own blood that fell out of the corners of his mouth and made him long to sob for the wasted years spent thinking he was meant for this world. And so much more.

     He felt every pang of guilt and hatred rising in his guts as he let his nails dig ruts into the fabric when fiery eyes darted to the stairway. Disgust flooded him strongly, his head shaking rapidly when he tried to fight off these new desires attacking him when he growled out a furious demand.

      "Go away-"

      It was like someone had forced him to feel it- the pains starting in his chest where fingers twisted in his shirt just to make it stop. Visions that destroyed him where he lie falling apart in the barren shadows. The only thing he could see through his fits of pain and distress was a glowering stare of something formed of blotchy red. The wrecked shape somehow melting on its stance- the body grabbing for the railing as it barely stood, glaring into him as it clenched its grinning teeth sharply.

      "Gh- fu-ck," He garbled out words, but nothing connected. His head fell against the arm rest to pretend it didn't stand there.

      Seconds turned to minutes, the ignorance growing to be bliss as he seemed to awaken to whole new light. The glow of the dawn filling his sight by the time he came to his senses. The room teeming with life as it all felt perky and exciting versus the damp coldness of the night. It wasn't pain he felt, nor the plea of death, but the joy of watch Chikusa pass him by under that glowing sunrise Ken's vision cleared to see.

      It was like it all didn't exist. Just another symptom of his mental insecurities that blurred into firm lines Chikusa would never understand even if Ken spent the whole of breakfast explaining.

      That's why he shook it off, his shoulders losing their tension as his friend ran his hand down their hefty form. "Are you okay?"

      He was still reeling, but he exhaled sharply and barked out a yes.

      Still, there was no way he could have known that the weight binding his legs to the couch was Belphegor, those darkening eyes watching him lie and deny it all as he wished he could drown him in those burning emotions he felt every night and day. To suffocate this nuisance in the dreary feeling of hatred and grotesque misery. Because Bel never felt happiness like this.

      He was a pitiful existence he wanted to destroy- destroy like the boy he forced his ghostly weight on until his nails grasped his leg and heard Ken cry out from the reddening lashes that revealed themselves on his thigh.

      "I didn't get much sleep last night." He lied.

 

* * *

 

  
      Quivering in the chill, Fran didn't dare move an aching muscle. His flesh so numb that he exhaled sharp intakes of white dragon's breath on every draw. His weakened movements hastened by the passing touch of cool fingers that brushed past his cheek to edge away the touch of mint green where they moved. beyond his ear.

       The room was dead. The breathy catch of ragged breaths tugging away from the blustery night that chased them into deeper darkness. The eerie bliss of foggy winter falling hard on the home hardly housing them as it was- but it now lie nestled in a field of coaxing mist that Bel gazed over with a solemn smirk forming on the tremendously ivory skin.

      Now, of all times before, he felt as though it were a castle. The walls crumbling with disrepair, the drafts billowing in beneath the creaky floors just snapping under his steps silenced by time. He was on his edge. The wreckage driving him to the brink where all that awaited him was the blood and loss.

      Loosely, he let the memories rush him. Dragging him to hell with every thought draining the humanity from the bones of dust and brutality shredding him finely.

       Burn them all in the searing cold. Slice open the throats bared in the beds that he owned, that he gave them all without ever knowing he'd lose to these obnoxious dimwits he housed without a say.

      He owned their pathetic lives in the palm of his hand- driving their brains to insanity and choking out the last breaths from all their bodies as he watched them all sleep in his own hazy retreats by the glass of what would always be his.

      "Bel?" Fran finally asked, his body able to just barely sit up in the agony of facing the chilling graze of wind and trembling that overcame him in seconds as the covers slowly slipped down his shoulders.

      His eyes adjusted to the shade of the room swiftly, able to see where his friend haunted the same window again and again with no words to speak. Not when his mind crawled with hatred and temptation that called out to him like a fire he could toy with. An arousal for the destruction he began to crave when his neck cracked and he swiveled back to watch the boy in his room shiver from the seasonal plague.

     He moved toward the bed delicately, swallowing hard on the lump that made him say things he desired to hold back for ages. Because Bel wasn't supposed to be the monster everyone painted him to be- because he wasn't concealing the silvery tooth of a razor in the pocket of his jacket where Fran never looked.

      On a list of many things, he could have said what he'd done to Ken Joshima. Watching how the boy shattered and seized on the sofa while Bel stood guard just to see him break. The mind games all fun and games until they were forced into someone else's mind that was too weak to see what he had always seen.

     To truly feel the pain Belphegor had always been trapped within as he staggered ahead rather clumsily just to knead his fingers into the bed beside his companion. His body stumbled over him too, his hair splaying along Fran's chest as the boy reacted obviously in a bland jerk that caused Bel to slide slightly against his clothed form.

     His mouth moved carefully on his next words, but it didn't cease. "Do you hate them too?"

      "Hate who?" Fran questioned, his arms withdrawing from Bel's side since he feared touching him at that moment. The slurred sound of his voice almost drunken without even a drop of alcohol to taste. The desperate rage that fumed from him almost undeniable as Fran hid away his fears and sat very calm and still.

     But the decision should have been so obvious. Bel despised all who entered that door. All the souls that denied him peace- the ones who challenged his territory- claimed what was his. And what was his would always be the works of his spoiled brat tendencies boiling over like a heated pot that Bel spilled in a fit of hateful wrath by dragging nails down Fran's sheets.

     "Just hate them," He snarled senselessly, hidden eyes flashing directly into Fran's bleak expression suddenly hitting hard. It was like a deadpan of immediate silent treatment. "So I can have a reason to get rid of them already."

 _Hate them with_ passion _so he could take the final plunge. Take away their lives meaninglessly as he locked himself away from the rest of this sick world like a madman whose only praise was that of those teal eyes loosely observing his every twitch and movement at last._

_For all he loved, Bel thought that all he would ever have was priceless, but it was junk now. The furniture, the clothes, the electronics. He was lost. The world forgetting his existence while they all lived on worthlessly the way they deserved, and he trembled just imagining what he could do with their skins. Their bodies his to tamper with and destroy just as his palms slipped around either side of his guest with a slick smile._

     "I can't," Fran objected suddenly. Belphegor had paused in the heat of his thoughts, but it didn't put a stop to the devastating imagination pondering what it must have felt like to be the one holding the blade for once. To guide it deep into someone else's' chest while he watched life fade out of their eyes. "They're annoying, but they're not terrible-"

     "You don't get anything yet."

     "I don't see what you want me to get about this."

_That Fran was more than a guest now. That he was so much more than a benefit or just another intruder of the home that welcomed him with open arms just because life was shit, and Bel felt that same emotion coursing through his veins daily._

_They shared it all. That taste of kindness flooding him so heavily that the mighty fell for mint and teal like a blur he could never recall no matter how hard he tried to force it away._

_It wasn't supposed to end like this, but it would. Bel had everything he could ever want in his prison, but the day Fran arrived in that room his fate for eternity had been sealed as one of Bel's playmates._

     That's why he tasted like poison, the crawl of Bel's thighs strange against Fran's figure under the covers, the advancing kiss slowly taking over his control while the struggle barely lasted on Fran's end.

     Fran was a toxin- filling him with pretty lies and lust he never longed to feel the rage clutching his chest. Pent up emotion falling apart toward the urges escaping him when he tilted his chin down for a better reach. To bite the previously bruised mouth he attacked, swirled his tongue over curiously just to see Fran shiver in anticipation.

     Inexperienced as he was, he made for a fun partner in moments like this. He tried to follow Bel, to lead the kiss when Bel's hands feathered back through the younger's hair playfully when knotting roughly into the pillow behind him and jerking the boy closer when it all crashed down on them jaggedly.

 _Fuck_ , he'd give it all just to keep him. To lavish, to ravage, to feast on the taste of Fran's blood as he did when chewing the boy's lip gave him that thrill to make his spine tingle, his legs shaking when he got that first nudge into sexuality to push aside just when Fran rubbed away the coppery taste in a pant.

      His eyes suggested fright, a panic that lingered as his body melted down into the mattress that Bel raised his hips from gently in a fond beam that revealed all of his perfect teeth.

     "But what if I could give _anything_ for you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm healthy enough to write for now, so bless this chapter for actually being written! I am so fucking excited to be still updating this fic because I have almost never finished anything LMAO
> 
> Thank all you perfect fans who actually read my garbage because I know this fic probably isn't the greatest.

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy this unique, paranormal mystery work I conjured out of nowhere after a rather intense dream about living in an abandoned house with my family. It was enough to inspire this little fic that is packed with violence, humour, fluff, and smut wrapped all in one for your pleasure.
> 
> Find me on my blog: http://fictionallyattractive.tumblr.com/  
> Or Talk to me on my Scenarios blog for KHR: http://probablythevaria.tumblr.com/


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